June 12, 2015

June 12, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing will be my third response to “Zen and Behavior Analysis” (2010) by Roger Bass. When I am reading a paper like this I am catching up with things from my past and my response is often my private speech which is triggered by these public words. Other behaviorists have also tried explain Zen from a behavior analytic point of view. According to Bass, however,, they all got it wrong as “Zen is “the outcome of Zen practices.” This kind of argument, that Zen is like this or like that, is Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In NVB disagreements are never properly addressed and cannot be dissolved . As long as NVB  continues there is no room for Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). 

Papers like this are written to disagree and my  point is: why don’t we have an actual conversation in which we disagree, because that would speed things up. Obviously, when much disagreement is to be expressed no conversation will be possible. To have more conversation, not only must we focus on what we agree on, but also, we must stop limiting our conversation to what was written and read. Let’s say we do that, but we find disagreements again stop our conversation and make the conversation impossible. My suggestion is:, let’s talk about this in a slightly different way than we are used to. NVB  makes SVB impossible. NVB stops SVB. SVB is authentic talking in which we take turns as speaker and listener, but NVB is the pretension of talking, in which our roles as speakers and listeners are fixed.Once we understand that NVB will be much easier to stop. NVB has to be stopped for SVB to begin. If  our SVB can continue, we will eventually extinguish  NVB. 

Much writing, which is a function of NVB, will also come to an end when we engage in SVB. I claim that most of our talking is NVB and therefore most of our writing is unproductive and endlessly beating around the bush. If the conversation stops, it is very obvious,, but in writing the illusion is created that a conversation still continuous, but all that is going on is NVB. I want you to know thatBass’s writing is in support of NVB and not of SVB.  

We may start out with SVB , but we get stranded with NVB. This is very common. Bass actually talked with Skinner about this concern. He admits that he was nervously "struggling to find good answers for epistemological questions.” Many people have struggled like him. Skinner’s answer to his questions was: “I don’t care much for isms.” He said he didn’t care for any “dualism, epiphenomenalism, monism or materialism.” Take note of the fact Skinner here directed Bass’s attention to “verbal behavior of which philosophy is a subset.”  He didn’t speak to Bass like someone would do who is trying to calm someone down, to the contrary, he gave him an ultimatum: either we talk about verbal behavior or this conversation ends. Although, generally speaking, Skinner has more SVB repertoire than other behaviorists, in this, instance, he spoke not with ,but at Bass and thus expressed NVB.   


This example is significant because anyone can imagine being in Bass’s shoes. Skinner has a different status than Bass, just as a Zen master has a different status as a disciple. Bass’s puzzlement is about to get bigger as he writes “Digesting his remarks led me to the giddy epiphany that Verbal Behavior (1957) was the unified field theory of academe – Skinner’s analysis accomplished for human behavior what Einstein had sought for physics. And then came along Zen.” It seems to me that Bass perhaps, even unknowingly, was having questions about how his own experience, which (due to his involvement in Zen practice became confined to and limited by his Zen verbal behavior), could be better explained by behavior analysis.   Although he was nervous to speak with such an important person as Skinner, Bass was probably as open to receive instruction from him as he would be to Zen master. 

Bass thought he wanted to talk with Skinner about the relation between Zen and behavior analysis,, but what he really wanted to talk about was of course how his own experience could be explained by behavior analysis. However,, this focus on his own experience took the backseat over his knowledge about and indoctrination byZen. Bass wanted to talk with Skinner about his own experience, but because he didn’t know how to do that,, he talked in Zen jargon. It seems to me that way back, Skinner too wanted to talk about his own experience.

Skinner apparently wanted to talk about his own experience so strongly that it made him discovered how to do that. His ability to manipulate environmental variables, allowed him to express himself scientifically.  He would talk with Bass only in such a way that he could have his say. Thus, Skinner didn’t have SVB , but NVB, because he coerced Bass to adhere to his view. Bass on the other hand, tried to be true to his own experience, so he stuck to hisZen jargon and by doing so, he also maintained NVB. 


What is also easy to recognize in the relationship between Skinner and Bass that NVB is a function of hierarchical relationship. SVB, by contrast, would be the conversation in which Skinner is no longer predetermined by his radical behaviorism and Bass is no longer preoccupied with his Zen philosophy. Such a conversation is both possible and necessary, but it will only happen if we recognize how our knowledge can get in the way of our talking. 

When Bass writes that "Zen took me outside not just culture-bound distinctions,, but also distinctions themselves”, he refers to his Zen   experience, which doesn’t involve much talking. Only, if “everything you know is wrong”, a different way of talking, SVB is possible.

How else but with SVB are we going to “discover what grows in the estuary made by Zen and behavior analysis”? NVB  keep us stuck with “aboutism” about “Zen and behavior analysis.” Bass believes that "Mentalism is uniquely ill suited for dealing with Zen’s extreme’s parsimony”, but since the rates of NVB are about as high among Zen Buddhists as among behavioral analysts, I conclude that  mentalism is still very common in both groups. 

“To step back from agency accounts ” (Vargas, 1996) and explanations “that appeal to events taking place somewhere else, at some other level of observation, described in different terms” (Skinner,, 1950) is not, as Bass seens to believe, “a step toward Zen”, but a step toward a new way of talking: SVB. Skinner’s words refer to the often overlooked fact that what is written and what is read cannot “appeal to events taking place somewhere else at another level of observation, described in different terms,” that is, to what is said and listened to.  Spoken words are not the same as our written words.  

It is so easy to gloss over the troublesome fact that for some strange reason written words have become more important than spoken words. We read that “Behavior analysis and Zen preserve no subject-object distinction”, but it is individual people who preserve such distinctions and who in one way or another, verbally or non-verbally act accordingly. Behavior analysts think they agree when they read “When contingencies are the units of analysis, the individual is part of an interactive context,” but only in SVB, can they actually experience each other “as part of an interactive context.”  It is interesting that Bass uses the word “individual “and doesn’t specify “interactive context” as being another human individual.  The statement would then read: “When contingencies are the units of analysis the individual is part of another individual.”  The latter is SVB, but the former is NVB. In NVB  the speaker and the listener are separated and the listener is treated by the speaker as a a thing. If “the interactive context” is not  another person, the speaker is talking at the listener who is either above and very important or below and completely irrelevant. Only in SVB do we come off of our theoretical high horse and do we rise out of our ignorance.

June 11, 2015

June 11, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing will be my second response to “Zen and Behavior Analysis” (2010) by Bass. It could be argued that I have never quite completely overcome my tendency to talk back at people. All my writings are in essence an expression of that. I think there is something more important than writing. I never wanted to write, I wanted to talk, but now that I write, I am not going to mince words. I don’t forget about the importance of talking while I am writing, but most writing seems to diminish our way of talking. The paper I am reviewing is just another example of such writing. 

Even when people are talking they are not really talking. They are often talking in a coercive manner. Based on the sound of their voice,, I already don’t like what they say and I don’t  want to hear it. People who have accused me of not listening to them were right. I wasn’t listening to them, I didn’t want to listen to them and I think that nobody wants to listen to someone who sounds noxious.

In this paper not much can be understood about what I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the kind of talking in which the speaker’s voice is annoying, From an early age, I felt a strong reaction to say something back to someone who sounds mean, threatening, intimidating, forceful, and disrespectful. It got me in trouble millions of times, but I am not complaining. To the contrary, I feel fortunate to have such a low shit threshold. My whole life I have been hearing that something is wrong with me, but nothing is wrong with me, I just don’t like to be violated and abused.

I don't like to be involved in NVB and I have no time for it. To me NVB is the basis for everything which is wrong in this world. The terrible things people do is because they were reacting against NVB. They didn’t want it,, they fought against it, and they tried to stop it, but they didn’t know they wanted to haveSound Verbal  Behavior (SVB), the way of talking in which we all sound good.  Had they known SVB, they would, have had it. I am not claiming that I or anyone else can have SVB all the time, but I know what SVB is and therefore I have it often.

Most people don’t know what SVB is, but yet they think they do. In other words, while they manipulate, dominate, distract, force and, avoid authentic conversation, they make it seem as if they are doing something great, as if they are contributing something positive. Fact is,, however, they are not contributing anything positive, but they are taking something away. They take away your life, your energy, your attention, your feelings and they try to make you think that it is for your own good that you should be obedient and let them do the talking. I used to oppose them, but nowadays I don’t waste my time on them anymore. They are not worth my time. All my time goes to SVB and to those people who are open for it. The students I teach in my Principles of Psychology classes are the most available and after one semester they get it. This is the best I have achieved with a group of people. This is the longest I have worked with any group. I look forward to the fall semester and I enjoy my summer without teaching. T will be teaching three classes and I feel very fortunate. Although I don't make much money I like what I do and my students appreciate me and reinforce me.

June 10, 2015

June 10, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing will be my first response to “Zen and Behavior Analysis” (2010) by Roger Bass. I will first respond to the abstract as this will allow me to take some pot shots at this paper.  "Bass believes that Zen poses a “challenge for behavior analysis to explain a repertoire which renders analysis meaningless.” I don’t believe this is the case. Zen doesn’t pose any challenge to behaviorism. To the contrary, Zen is challenged by behaviorism which pigeonholes it as the religious nonsense it really is and has always been. Imagine for a moment that Zen and behaviorism are two different languages which arose from two verbal communities. The aforementioned statement would then read as “Russian poses a challenge to English to explain a repertoire which renders English meaningless.” Such a statement is of course utter nonsense. Japanese is a language,, but Zen is a religion. 

Zen is not a language. It claims that language is not needed, specifically not the scientific language called behavior analysis, which debunks Zen’s authoritarian view. Supposedly, the meaninglessness of analysis “results from” what is triumphantly described as “the unique verbal history generated by Zen methods.” However, there is nothing unique about a religion which makes grand claims,, but which, ultimately, doesn’t and can’t deliver.

“Untying Zen’s verbal knots” presumably requires many years of practice with methods, such as meditation and riddles to suppress and undermine any kind of conversation. The dissociative effects this causes presumably result in “Enlightenment and Samadhi”, but all of these can only be accomplished by strict subservience to a Zen master, someone who is allowed to distract his or her students from their verbal behavior. Zen’s illusive “primary outcomes” are not to be questioned and “cannot be described in any conventional sense”, but “Samadhi or Satori” are said to be automatically reinforcing behaviors. The mystical notion of “stimulus singularity” reminds me of Chomsky’s mentalistic “poverty of the stimulus” argument. I won't go into that.

Could one call that  a Zen koan? Fact remains,, whether one considers, Zen, Catholicism or Islam, religious authority figures have always dominated other people by yanking words around in every language. There is really no need to “untie any verbal knots,” because without religion these knots simply don’t occur.  It is equally irrelevant to imagine what would have happened if Shakespeare had been a Zen Buddhist, Hamlet’s verbal behavior is believed to have been enriched as he would be able to say “To be or not to be or neither.” However, the question why Hamlet became philosophical is answered by the environment from which he gets his ideas. The fiction that someone is capable of moving "beyond a verbal framed normal-life view” and is “enlightened” is based on the inferiority on the disciple and the superiority of the so-called enlightened one. All talk about how Zen practice is done has to be hierarchical .

June 9, 2015

June 9, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is my seventh response to "Radical Behaviorism and Buddhism: Complementarities and Conflicts” by Diller and Lattal (2008).  Who could have thought I would be writing seven responses to this paper?  This is my final response. By comparing Buddhism and behaviorism, those who are into Buddhism are supposed to think they are like behaviorists and behaviorists should view themselves now as Buddhists. What else could the purpose of this paper be?  To convince non-behaviorists or non-Buddhists that behaviorism is cool?  If that was the goal, I would think that non-behaviorists would be even more turned off by behaviorism if it was compared with Buddhism. How would a non-Buddhist become interested in behaviorism by comparing it Buddhism? 

I guess the author’s inability to reach nirvana became the establishing operation for writing this paper? It would explain why they wrote “The notion of effective action leads directly to the consideration of the pragmatic outcomes of behaving in accordance with Buddhism and radical behaviorism”  (underlining added) . Of course, there is only effective action for behaviorism. Buddhism with its ten thousand rules is incapable of being pragmatic, but Baum, who presumably is an expert on this topic, point s out the importance of what Buddhism as a philosophy “allows a person to do.” Let us make no mistake about this “behaviorism is based on pragmatism.” We would have known that without Baum. Overrated Buddhist knowledge stands in no comparison to behaviorism in terms of its ability to “satisfy human needs and further human interests.” Thus, it is Buddhism and not behaviorism which is going to die out, because of its dismal record. It would be not pragmatic if Buddhism, which is ancient and well-respected, were incorporated to legitimize behaviorism 

"A scientific understanding of human affairs” would indeed lead to a “technology that could be employed to improve the world,” but our involvement with pre-scientific ways of conduct derails such progress. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVb) is such a  technology, but it has only been acknowledged and implemented by me and by a few others. Like Carr, I insist on the bidirectional causality of behavior. Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB )  will continue if we keep making the speaker more important than the listener.  When we engage in SVB we will shape new kinds of behavior, but when we continue with NVB, we are not learning anything new. 

"Mindfulness meditation” is not shaping any new behavior and those who practice it still continue with their NVB. I have talked with thousands of meditators, and they practice NVB like everyone else, the Dalai Lama included.  Being able to “tact the contingencies that the individual [the speaker] is establishing for others [the listener] may lead to improved social interaction, and  ultimately, improvement of the human condition”(words between brackets and underlining added). I wonder if this is really about how we talk. “Instead of escaping the suffering of life and achieving nirvana” pragmatic people are realistic enough to acknowledge that how we talk is tremendously important." I doubt  that this is true. “Remaining present in the world, meditating and praying until all sentient beings have reached nirvana” is not going to do anyone any good. Nothing is gained by the Buddhist “ultimate self-control response” ,which is against talking. Let’s be very clear:Buddhist austerities are another form of aversive behavioral control . SVB is appetitive and is not about depriving ourselves from sensory stimulation. To the contrary, it increases and attunes our sensory stimulation to such a point that speakers and listeners feel stimulated as they all listen to themselves while they speak. Buddhism isn’t and will never be a science and “verification by personal experience” is meaningless. 

I guess the authors were trying to talk with themselves when they stated “with Buddhism, there is a feedback loop between behavior and its consequences; behavior and consequences interact to improve the life of the individual” (underlining added). This so-called interaction, however, has nothing to do with what happens between the speaker and the listener. It is at best a good example of a speaker who wants others to listen to him or to her, but who is not even listening to him or herself. As stated, such speech is NVB.  

It’s ludicrous that behaviorists write and even get published a paper in which they praise the “devotion of boddisatvas” whose attempts supposedly “bring about vast changes for all sentient beings.” What sheer stupidity is this?  Unless Buddhists  learn to have SVB, they can only pretend to have  “a scientific way of thinking in which self-examination is required.” I have not found one Buddhist with SVB.  The so-called rigorous questioning that is presumably done by Buddhist is a fake, as it only involves “personal verification." SVB on the other hand, is based on scientific questioning, that is,, it can and must be verified by others. 

In SVB, the speaker’s SVB is mediated by the listener, who then becomes a SVB speaker to the speaker, who then becomes a listener. This ongoing turn-taking and nothing else maintains SVB.  When SVB occurs, communicators find “this process of questioning the truth by which one lives” is not part of SVB. Each time speakers  get side-tracked by esoteric nonsense, they create NVB as they produce a frightening contingency for the listener.

Only during SVB are “contingencies constantly analyzed and adjusted to most efficiently achieve the desired goals” but in NVB we only theorize about them. By the way, weren’t Buddhist supposed to let go of “ desired goals?” I am just saying. “The desired goals”, of course, are better relationship as a result of better conversation. 

Finally, at the end of the paper, the Hahn (2003) mentions something in the right direction. “If you get caught in an idea and consider it to be the truth then you miss the chance to know the truth.” Naturally, it takes a mentalist to “get caught in an idea”, but leaving that aside, behaviorists still get caught in Buddhist ideas because they haven’t  yet become scientific about their way of talking. In other words, NVB  has continued in spite of the fact that the truth was already known about behavior being a function of environmental variables. The variable maintaining NVB is how we sound while we speak. If we don’t listen to ourselves while we speak, we keep missing the fact that we produce a sound which maintains NVB.  In SVB we have a different sound and mood which goes together with different behavior. 

I had a lot to say about this paper about Buddhism and behaviorism. It got me fired up as I have often met presumably meditative people who didn't want to talk. SVB is meditative communication, but NVB is mechanical,, unidirectional, hierarchical interaction. Actually, NVB isn't interaction at all, because it is a one-way street.  SVB cuts through all the red tape and exposes those who are pretending to be better than others. 

 

If our purpose is to have improved social interaction,,we must attend to how we sound while we speak. Every speaker must be his or her own listener. This, however, is only possible if listening to ourselves becomes more important than listening to others. Due to the high rates of NVB, we are more inclined to listen to others than to ourselves. To listen to ourselves,, we must stop listening to others. Only if we are no longer forced to listen to others can we begin to listen to ourselves. In NVB, we listen to ourselves as if we are listening to someone else, but in SVB our speaking and listening behavior is joined again.