April 2, 2016

April 2, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Religion as Schedule-Induced Behavior” (2009) Strand quotes Segal (1972) who stated that “Religious behavior may be a class of responses induced by exposure to monumental life events.” The exact same can be said about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), which should therefore be classified as a religious behavior. It is so interesting that reading Strand’s paper reminds this writer about this origin. Stated differently, to solve our communication problems it is of utmost importance that we include the spiritual dimension. Without it we clearly don’t stand a chance to make any real progress. 

This analysis leads to another way of defining Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). During NVB, we are presumably not spiritual, or to put it more plainly, not sensitive. The fact is, however, that we are only pretending not to be sensitive. As religious behaviors always involve superstitions, many had to move away from it as it was incompatible with scientific knowledge.  

Although people on a large scale have left their religion, they haven’t switched as massively from NVB to SVB, from coarse-grained way of talking to a fine-grained way of communicating. Even Hayes , who labels “the class self-as-infinite”, doesn’t mention the distinction between SVB and NVB, which is needed to make it possible to notice that “it emerges as a function of verbal training in perspective taking (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, Roche, 2001). 

While Hayes (1984), Schoenfield (1993) and others have agreed in writing on a description of religious behavior as a class of “responding in accordance with the self extended beyond a material existence”, this didn’t and couldn’t lead to SVB, the refinement of our way of talking.  Hayes (1984) is absolutely  wrong when he writes “It is important to note that the deictic response class, self-as-infinite, cannot be defined in terms of topography; membership is unconstrained by form. It is a verbal frame involving if-then relations.” 

Both SVB and NVB could only be defined in terms topography as they involve different sounding speakers. Without paying attention to this topographical difference, we keep being stuck with written hypothetical “if-then relations,” with wishful-thinking which is created and maintain by more scriptures.