May 16, 2015

May 16, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Learning about behaviorism is similar to learning about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), as both involve acquiring a new way of talking, which in turn demands a new way of looking at the reality.  In the beginning of his book “Learning” (2013, p.4) Catania points out that “If we want to talk about these events in new ways, we must take care not to confuse our new ways of talking with the old ways. We’ve all spend most of our lives talking about what we do, but those familiar ways may interfere with our new ways of talking, so we must be aware of language traps.” (underlining added). He is talking about experiences he has had and he seems to be referring to matters which are quite common. Problems with “language traps” are apparently so profound and widespread that a special warning is needed.  

From the statement above it is clear, however, that Catania doesn’t give much weight to the difference between written and spoken verbal behavior. He uses words like “talk about these events”, without specifying that “these events” only refer to actual talking behaviors and are not identical with his writing behavior. Although he may have felt he was talking while he was writing and although the reader may feel he or she is listening to someone who was speaking, this “language trap” is evidently not worth Catania's consideration. Like any other non-behaviorist writer, Catania assumes the role of speaker and the reader is expected to assume the role of listener. In reality neither speaking nor listening is happening. There is only Catania who writes about talking and then the reader is reading about talking. 

      

Yet, Catania’s writing refers to talking, to speaking behavior and to listening behavior. If we reread the first sentence, we find out why it is so easy to “confuse our news ways of talking with the old ways [of talking]” (underlining and words added). If we keep making the same mistake, we repeat our old ways of talking, that is, in our old ways of talking we keep writing and reading about talking and we keep thinking that we are talking, while in reality, we are only writing and reading. Even when we talk, we don’t really talk as long as we mainly talk about what we have written. 

The longer our writing and reading are considered as if we are speaking and listening, the less we will be inclined to speak and listen and the more we will be inclined to write and to read. Actually, it is more likely that we will end up reading rather than writing, because only a small portion of writers are read and can realistically be read. Nevertheless, this is where we are today: writing and reading are considered to be much more important than speaking and listening. As far as there is any similarity between writing and reading and speaking and listening, we could say that the writer is more important than the reader, in the same way that the speaker is more important than the listener. It could also be argued that in the same way that the reader must pay the writer to read, the listener must pay (attention), in NVB, to the speaker. 

Of course, our speaking and listening still matters, it matters more than ever, but the problems which occur during our speaking and listening have not, could not and will never be solved by writing and reading about them. If writing is going to be helpful in solving problems pertaining to our speaking and listening, it must discourage the reader from reading and encourage him or her to become involved in speaking. Moreover, since the speaker who is not listening to him or herself forces the listener to listen and will talk at the listener, the speaker must listen to him or herself, while he or she speaks, so that he or she is perceived by the listener as someone who is talking with, rather than talking at him or her. Whether or not the speaker is listing to him or herself while he or she speaks makes a big difference for the listener, as the listener is stimulated to also become a speaker in the former, but is prevented from becoming a speaker in the latter.  

Catania is writing about the way of talking in which the speaker talks at the listener. I call that way Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In NVB the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. Catania may have new behaviorist content to convey, but his way of talking is as outdated as anyone else, because he elevates writing and reading above speaking and listening. In other words, when Catania writes “If we want to talk about these events in new ways, we must take care not to confuse our new ways of talking with the old ways”, he is only writing about the importance of using the proper terminology, but he is not even writing about talking. Simply stated, he only insists that we must know Chinese to be able to talk Chinese.

Catania states “We’ve all spend most of our lives talking about what we do, but those familiar ways may interfere with our new ways of talking, so we must be aware of language traps.” We used to talk much more, but we don’t talk very much anymore. “Our new ways of talking” refers to the fact that nowadays we mainly write about talking and we talk less and less. Obviously, our old ways of talking interfere with our supposedly new ways of talking. Whether we use proper behaviorist terminology or not, our old ways of talking are our only attempts to talk with each other, whereas these so-called new ways of talking have replaced our talking with writing and reading. What a great progress! 

How is it even possible that our old ways of talking interfere with our new ways of talking? There must be something not quite clear about our new ways of talking. Nobody would still believe that the earth is flat or that it is the center of the universe. Such an old way of thinking would never make its way into our new scientifically-informed educated way of thinking. Why does someone like Catania write about our old ways of talking which interfere with our new ways of talking? It is definitely our old ways of talking which keep the superstitious belief in our behavior-initiating agent going and such talk is incompatible with the science of human behavior. However, how behaviorists stop such talk?  

Behaviorists who have tried to speak about behaviorism haven’t said much that could stop our old ways of talking. In spite of empirical evidence, our old ways of talking have continued. It appears as if our old ways of talking are immune to science. However, according to me this is not the case. Science is capable of changing our old ways of talking, but for that to happen, behaviorist must begin to talk about talking and stop writing and reading about talking and only talk about what they have written and read. Behaviorists must leave behind the illusion that people abandon their old ways of talking by replacing it with a new way of talking, which isn’t talking, but which is only new terminology presumably to be able to talk about talking. To implement this terminology and to reach those who are still unfamiliar with it, behaviorist must be willing to talk first how people usually talk and then to introduce their new terminology. 

Our usual way of talking is NVB. Only if that is clear can we introduce SVB,  which would have been the behaviorist way of talking if behaviorists had paid attention to how Skinner sounded. It was assumed that someone who knows behaviorism knows how to talk about it, but that was a wrong assumption.      

May 15, 2015

May 15, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

I am interested in the bigger picture. Why do many people still believe in a higher power? Why is radical behaviorism, which teaches there is no self, not accepted, let alone, known as a science? There is a reason why in spite of all our scientific progress mankind has remained immune for scientific evidence. However, the problem is not and has never been religion or our so-called belief in a higher power. The problem is and has always been with our belief in an inner self. Due to our belief in an inner self our way of talking is distorted.

As long as people believe their behavior is caused by an inner agent, their way of talking will instill fear. This way of talking didn’t come out of the blue and has been going on for eons of time. Those who keep making others afraid were themselves made to feel afraid. Our way of talking will only transform when fear is not elicited. This happens occasionally, but not consistently, predictably, deliberately and skillfully. Once it happens, however, there will be nobody to be convinced about anything anymore. When talking makes us feel safe, there will be nothing to do for a higher power or an inner self.  

Conversations that stimulate and maintain feelings of safety and well-being are different from those in which these positive emotions don't happen. There are two ways of talking: in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) the speaker influences the listener in a positive manner and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) the speaker influences the listener in a negative manner. In SVB, the sound of the speaker’s voice is experienced by the listener as an appetitive stimulus, but in NVB, the voice of the speaker is experienced as an aversive stimulus. We respond to the each other’s sound while we talk. We fear aversive stimulation.

One of the tasks of behaviorists is to develop parsimonious explanations for why people talk the way they do. Under the contingencies of naturalism, behaviorists, like other scientists, adhere to the simplest of explanations and terminology that pertains to their field. Scientific language is different from ordinary language, because describing, explaining, predicting and controlling a complex process such as our vocal verbal behavior or our way of talking requires a terminology which accurately captures what is actually going on. 

Although many behaviors have been explained by behaviorist terminology (e.g. stimulus, response, reinforcement, etc.), analysis of the interaction between speaker and listener has been limited, as the sound of our voice while we speak has not been given enough consideration. The distinction between SVB and NVB allows for a level of analysis, which hasn’t yet happened. This is an  in-vivo analysis, that is, one which only makes sense during our interaction. Behaviorist terminology must be expanded with these two subsets of our vocal verbal behavior, so that, at long last, behaviorists can have the conversation which isn’t biased by inner agents. Yes, behaviorists who engage in NVB are just as troubled by non-existing inner agents as those who believe in them.

SVB is the vocal verbal behavior in which there is no inclination to refer our so-called inner self, as nothing stimulates it. In NVB, on the other hand, we constantly refer to our inner selves, presumably out of need, despair, danger,  neglect, oppression, anxiety, stress, anger, disrespect, out of whack, out of tune, out of our body, out of revenge and out of aversive stimulation. NVB doesn't and can't fulfill our needs or resolve our fears, stress, anger and confusion. Scholarly papers make it seem as if we have transcended these negative effects. Behaviorists write, but don’t talk about Motivating Operations, which increase or decrease the effectiveness of consequent stimuli. It is during our vocal verbal behavior, during parenting or teaching, that the establishing operations increase the reinforcing or punishing qualities of a stimulus. 

The stimulus mentioned in the establishing operation is heard and felt only while we talk. Indeed, the listener directly experiences the speaker’s voice as a reinforcing or punishing stimulus. Since nonverbal organisms have similar responses as verbal organisms to what they perceive as aversive or as appetitive sounds, it is evident that humans as verbal organisms, can also be deprived or satiated from unconditioned reinforcers or can be deprived or satiated from conditioned reinforcers. Thus, the belief in a behavior-causing self could even persist in those who had a behaviorist scientific education, as the ongoing experience of safety which can only be maintained by SVB was hardly ever there. The concept of SVB and NVB takes us out our reading-seat and puts us with both of our talking-feet on the ground, because it relates to our biology. Our phylogenetic endowment determines that certain stimuli, certain sounds, are experienced as aversive. This isn’t changed by the fact that people can be coerced to listen to aversive-sounding speakers in NVB.

SVB and NVB are neither metaphors nor hypotheticals. SVB is called that way as we are aware of our sound. By contrast, in NVB, we are not aware of our sound. As we don’t listen to ourselves while we speak, we produce a sound which is noxious. Thus, lack of self-listening sets the stage for NVB. Naturally, self-listening refers to the speaker as his or her own listener. It is apparent to the speaker that there is no self when he or she listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. It can be verified while talking that identification with a self occurs during NVB, but dissolves in SVB. People from all walks of life have acknowledged the existence of and the difference between SVB and NVB. 

Once the distinction between SVB and NVB has been made, it is impossible to not know about it anymore. It is possible due to the prevailing contingencies to produce NVB, but once NVB has been recognized as NVB, the contingencies will be changed to make SVB possible. This process will continues as SVB is so very beneficial. The more success one experiences in creating the contingencies for SVB, the more motivated and capable one will be to stop NVB and discriminate it as such. Lack of success at contingency management is due to our overemphasis on written verbal behavior. Our ability to change the contingency would improve if we focused on our vocal verbal behavior. 

Although during SVB we will effortlessly transcend our belief in a self, which presumably caused our behavior, we neither challenge ourselves nor each other about what we believe. The change which occurs in how we sound is sufficient to dissolve our assumptions about ourselves and each other. Only while SVB is experienced can the understanding and interpretation of its importance reveal itself. We need to talk with each other to understand SVB and reading about it will not evoke that experience. Unbelievable as this may sound, the change of any kind of belief about our self will reliably happen as we engage in SVB. Unless we achieve SVB, we will not be able to acquire the analytical sophistication that is needed to understand our thoughts, our private speech, which is a function of the public speech which we were repeatedly exposed to and involved in. Only to the extent that we have been involved in and conditioned by SVB will we be able to have positive thoughts and feel no urge to hang on to our unfulfilled, needy, demanding, but imaginary self.

May 14, 2015

May 14, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

The fact that behaviorism isn’t known widely, isn’t taught everywhere and isn’t talked about very often, is because behaviorists and non-behaviorists alike are used to a way of talking, which can be described as immature. Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is a way of talking in which the people who talk believe they can get away with whatever they say as if there are no consequences. Since the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency, the listener in NVB, whether he or she opens his or her mouth or not, is going to assert some kind of counter-control. As this counter-control can’t be properly addressed in NVB (if it is addressed, it is not done accurately), it will primarily affect the private speech of the listener as negative self-talk.

Without the institutional recognition and promotion of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), communicators who are aware of the negative consequences of NVB can only talk among themselves about these negative effects. Moreover, they do so out of survival as they don’t want to lose their relationship or job. The fact remains, however, NVB is a form of talking that maintains and perpetuates inequality. Our so-called acceptance of aversive communicators is self-serving, that is, it leaves us with a sense that we as autonomous agents have decided to conform, to be pragmatic, to fit in, to be smart, because it was better to act in this or in that way. Consequently, we may say one thing, but do another, because for us saying and doing are two entirely different things. when in fact they are not. Saying and doing are both behaviors. It is intellectually immature to think otherwise. Intellectual maturity can only develop during SVB in which the false dichotomy between what we say and do becomes irrelevant. 

What we say is what we do. Only if we begin to recognize the extent to which we are conditioned by NVB, we will see an increase of SVB, which is the way of talking in which we are no longer speaking as individual selves, but as partners in an ongoing conversation. Our numbers are not determined by the amount of people who know about behavior-environment relations, but by the extent to which we are communicating SVB. I think that the learning involved in acquiring behaviorist knowledge must be preceded by SVB. 

SVB is not and cannot be about persuading someone into a particular way of thinking. However, NVB, on the other hand, is characterized by someone’s attempt to make someone else think in a particular way, by any means possible. The means serve the end. In NVB and it doesn’t matter if one succeeds with coercion, with tricks or by exploiting someone’s feelings, believes or ignorance. Even if one fails completely to convince someone about NVB or even if people don't buy into one's NVB, it doesn’t matter, because it always leads to new, more coercive, violent, persistent, punitive, insidious and inescapable attempts. The whole point of NVB is to dominate others. Complete dominance can only be achieved and maintained by keeping alive false belief about choice, autonomy and freedom. 

The fact that people imagine a behavior-controlling inner self in NVB isn’t something philosophical. Although they are, like the consequences ofType II Diabetes, very real, the consequences of NVB are often denied. The long held assumption by behaviorists that a cultural belief in an inner agent prevents individuals from being benefitted by natural contingencies is flat out wrong. People who believe in an inner agent are better benefitted by the natural contingencies then those who don’t believe in inner agents. Their majority just shows how much better they are at benefitting than radical behaviorists, who have for the most part been unsuccessful in changing their mentalistic ways of thinking. If behaviorists would have known about SVB, however, they would have had no problem separating themselves from NVB.  Rather than doing this, they made tried to separate themselves from the field of psychology.

There is no overlap between SVB and NVB and thus they always only happen successively. When SVB changes into NVB, this is not a problem, but it is an opportunity to learn. It is only experienced as a problem to the extent that a presumed inner agent demands things to be different then they are. If this agent doesn’t really exist, then there is no problem. When NVB changes into SVB, this is never seen as a problem. The alteration occurs at a biological level as a noticeable change of energy within our own skin.  Thus, when someone switches from NVB to SVB, he or she experiences a sense of well-being which he or she wasn’t feeling before. However, this sense of well-being will immediately end the moment a presumed inner agent claims it as his or her experience. SVB continues in the absence of someone who does it, which means, it doesn’t leave any trace of someone who can claim to have even learned it.  We can only say that we maintain SVB in each other. 

When we experience that we can only maintain SVB together, that is, when we acknowledge that in SVB the speaker is listened to and understood and the listener can become such a speaker and the speaker can become such a listener, it is a very small step to realize that we maintain NVB together as well. However, this step is easier to be taken when we talk with ourselves than when we talk with each other. While focusing on each other, chances are much bigger that we will still infer (like we have done for so long) the inner causation of behavior. It is easy to blame another person for his or her behavior and to find a reason to justify that blame. When we listen to ourselves while we speak (which ideally, of course, is done simultaneously with others), we can catch ourselves asserting our imaginary inner agent, who may at any given moment claim to think, feel, experience or remember this or that.  When we carefully listen to and pay attention to the sound of our so-called inner agent, who seems to direct our thoughts, feelings, experiences, mood and attention, we find that he or she doesn’t exist. By verbalizing in our own words, pace and rhythm, whatever comes to our attention and by calmly listening to the sound of our voice, we effortlessly achieve a vastness and peace, which wasn’t there before. When I first discovered this I called it “The Language That Creates Space.”

Except in NVB, there are no others to influence, convince or persuade. Most of what we are accustomed to is based on coercive control of behavior. Even the idea that one supposedly must pay attention is aversive. The effect which we have on each other is there without anyone doing anything and without anyone having to do anything. NVB is so insensitive that we never took note of this. 

During SVB, we put words to our unique, ever-changing experience and we discover we are energized by talking with each other. Everyone who has ears can verify that in SVB the sound of our own voice plays a detectable role in the chain of functionally related events, which enhance the well-being of both the speaker and the listener. A new way of talking is possible, when we begin to  acknowledge that there are no inner selves, but that we cause each other’s vocal verbal behavior in the minutest ways possible.

May 13, 2015

May 13, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Once we have increased experience with the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) it will become apparent that focus on current contingencies is more effective than our familiar efforts to figure out and piece together the previous contingencies of which our current behavior might be a function. When speakers focus on their sound while they speak this emphasizes the moment in which their sound is produced and listened to. Speaking and listening behaviors mutually enhance each other when they happen at the same rate and intensity level. This is the case in SVB, but in NVB there is either a higher rate of speaking or a higher rate of listening. A higher rate of speaking occurs as a function of a lower rate of listening. Conversely, a higher rate of listening is a function of a lower rate of speaking. In the latter, this causes conflicts in a person’s private speech, but in the former the conflicts will occur mostly in the person’s public speech.

Whatever the assumptions about our interactions with others may be, these  assumptions are much easier to be dissolved on our own than while being engaged in a conversation with others. The reason for this is that we listen differently to ourselves then to others. However, we would like others to listen to ourselves in the same way that we listen to ourselves. Those who listen more to themselves than others, want others to listen to them in a manner that they may not even be capable of. On the other hand, those who hardly listen to themselves at all want others to listen to them in a similar superficial way. They dislike it when others listen to them in a more thorough manner then they are capable of. It is easy for us to see on our own why we go overboard with too much talking or too much listening; when others are absent it is easier to synchronize and join our speaking and listening behaviors, so that we can experience and explore SVB undisturbed and become less concerned with fulfilling the expectations of others. If alone we find we produce a lot of NVB, we tend to feel strange about producing SVB, but if we produce mostly SVB, we feel awkward about producing NVB. However, the new distinction between SVB and NVB makes these positive and negative phenomena acceptable.

Once we know more about the distinction between SVB and NVB and have a sense of the proportion of SVB and NVB experiences in our lives, we usually find we have more NVB than SVB experiences. I have never met anyone who with more SVB experiences than NVB experiences. The astounding fact that this ratio is so skewed towards NVB indicates that we interpret our experiences in the light of the behavior which has most momentum: NVB. Because of conditioning we feel responsible for causing our own behavior, although in fact a chain of functionally related events resulted in this anxious, but fictitious, internal behavioral manager. Reinterpretation of our lives in the light of SVB is a comforting experience. It takes time and happens in a step by step fashion.  

It is often said in NVB, that it is easy to see the ‘fault’ in others and not in ourselves. In SVB it becomes clear that it is only necessary for us to see the ‘fault’ in ourselves. Moreover, our so-called ‘fault’ turns out to be a fiction that was maintained by NVB. Those who experimented with SVB find that they are okay the way they are. SVB is a way of talking which reinforces the well-being of the speaker and the listener. Superstitious beliefs in a self is a function of NVB, which is based on negative emotions. Being strategic, refers to a non-existing inner behavior-manager. Anything predetermined, being political, but also being consistent or standing by our words implies NVB. 

This is the most difficult thing to understand is that SVB cannot be understood, but it must be experienced: SVB is a new way of speaking. The chain of functionally related events giving momentum to SVB creates a different order than the chain of functionally related events resulting in the perpetuation of NVB. Once we refer to the distinction between SVB and NVB, it is impossible to maintain our long-standing belief in an inner behavior-causing self, let alone in a higher power. Because they speak NVB, most scientists still don’t see anything wrong with having science and religion as an explanatory system. This changes once SVB is experienced. With SVB it is clear we can’t have it both ways, religion and science are incompatible. We either have SVB or we have NVB, that is, we are either really talking about the natural world or we are coercing and dominating each other, although we may use science, religion, politics, education and parenting as our excuse.

Scientist must continue to be taught about physics, biology and chemistry etc., but they must also be taught about SVB, as NVB makes them biased. As long as they are incapable of talking about their topic in a SVB fashion, they have an inner agent-agenda, which contradicts the natural philosophy of science. The change in verbal behavior, which occurs as they learn about SVB, is a matter of proper scientific contingency-management. Scientists should be the first ones to learn about SVB, as it is unacceptable that one moment verbal behavior is under control of natural contingencies, while next moment they cater to non-existent inner agents or supernatural entities. 

As stated, SVB is a new way of speaking. The content of a lecture can be the same and yet the lecture can still be new. The newness of what we say does not depend on the words we use, but on how we sound. In NVB, we sound the same, which is another way of saying that we are not really alive, but in SVB, our voice is alive and what we say is enhanced by how we say it. However, this happens without any effort, naturally, because the speaker in SVB is totally at ease with him or herself. The negative emotion that is always involved in NVB creates a tone of voice which distracts from what is being said, because it elicits in the listener counter control in the form of negative private speech.

Quality control of scientific practice should begin to focus on how scientists talk. Only in SVB can the natural philosophy of science be embraced and be properly continued, but in NVB scientific practice goes out the door. The most important independent variable which is functionally related to the outcome of our interactions is how we sound while we speak. Control over this specific variable is necessary to be able to discuss functional relations. When there is no attention for how we sound while we speak, when the speaker is not, or at least, imagines he or she is not, his or her own listener, then such a speaker will have private speech which is caused by NVB public speech. When the speaker and the listener are not experienced as one, by the scientist him or herself, his or her verbal repertoire is not controlled by the natural philosophy of science. Moreover, NVB impairs our ability to think, because it drives a wedge between public speech and private speech, which in turn maintains the false notion of an inner self, which then seems to be causing our behavior.