June 19, 2015

June 19, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

These are happy days for me. I am alone at home a lot as I am only working two days a week. Yesterday I jogged through Upper Bidwell Park to my favorite spot near the Chico Creek. It is so very different to swim in the creek than in the swimming pool at the gym. I meditated while I sat on the  lava rocks. As I closed my eyes it came to me that I had nothing  to talk about with myself. I am more peaceful these days. I have been writing beautiful songs to melodies of classical music and it dawned on me that I have always been attracted to adagios.  

We are going to have our house painted in Chinese yellow with green for the rims and dark read for our front door. Yesterday evening we ate roasted lam. As I was busy with the BBQ in the back yard, I saw a red dragon fly landing on a pole in the vegetable garden. Since my wife had also seen him, a thought of her father occurred. We laughed and said that he was coming to visit us disguised as a dragon fly. I went to bed early and woke up early. It is still dark and it is cool. There are gaps of silence in which there are no thoughts. The thoughts which appear are calm and satisfying. I have found another melody to which I will write some lyrics. When I hear beautiful music the words come by themselves. I love to sing and these new songs make me sing.

As I was jogging in the hills of Upper Bidwell park I realized how much I love this rugged North Californian land. I like to jog and jump over rocks. It makes my jogging a more stimulating event then when I jog on a flat path. My body constantly adjusts to the elevations of the path and that gives me energy. I was reminded of the times we hiked through the mountains and feel fortunate to have come to know the joy of being in nature. Many people don’t know about this. Usually I don’t meet anyone on my way.


While watching water flowing over the big black boulders my thoughts were about climate change and water scarcity. While people dry up their laws, I was sitting on a rock near this pristine creek. With one ear I could hear the sound of the creek upstream and with the other ear I could hear the sound downstream. The sound of the creek seemed to be streaming through me and it was so refreshing, so beautiful and abundant. After taking a bath and meditating my jogging was invigorated. I ran bear-chested along the trail which gave me different views of the creek.  

My body feels healthy. I am grateful my parents taught me that walking is good. I am reminded I need to repair my bicycle with tools I borrowed and give back tomorrow.  I like riding my bicycle in the park with Bonnie and will do that this weekend. My writing is one day ahead. A while ago, it was five days ahead, but lately, I have been taking it so easy that I am back to the right day. I play this game to write ahead of the day which is happening and enjoy the feeling of being ahead of my time. 


Today I meet someone who plays classical guitar and we are going to see if he can accompany my songs. He is very good. I heard him perform a week ago. Also, tonight there will be open mike at the Has Beans coffee shop. I plan to sing two songs and recite a poem. Each time I was there everyone loved what I was doing. I enjoy having found such an appreciative audience. 

Someone from the Open Mike had called me and had asked me to talk with him about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). He had experienced and understood it. It had changed his conversations with his friends. During our conversation he became so quiet that I had to ask: “Are you still there?” He answered he was soaking in what I was saying. I could tell he was a very sensitive person, but often misunderstood and not feeling validated. He said that he was looking forward to hearing me sing my next song.  

With this writing I have jumped ahead another day and it is such fun to be able to do that. My life is arranged differently because of this playful perspective. It is a creative phenomenon.  I hope that you, the reader who reads this, will be inspired and hopeful as it is to you that I am writing and talking.

June 18, 2015

June 18, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

It is remarkable to find out that even most behaviorists are not interested in or unaware of the importance of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior. Many don’t bother with it as reading and studying “Verbal Behavior” (1957) will turn their world upside down. The intellectual challenge of explaining verbal behavior,  like any nonverbal behavior, as behavior that is shaped by selection mechanisms, requires a complete change of looking at things, or rather, since we are dealing with the speaker and the listener, a totally different way of listening and talking. 

This new way of talking must occur between members of the verbal community from whom we have derived the verbal practices we used to call language. Behaviorists haven’t put much effort into talking and are isolated from the verbal community and this is something which needs to change. Obviously, they are only going to do that if they experience the reinforcing effects of social interaction. While writing and reading and studying it is easy to forget that verbal behavior is behavior mediated by other persons. The most important part of mediation by others, such as being accepted, belonging, connecting and enjoying  one' s company, is not happening, because they don’t talk. 

The reinforcing effects of verbal behavior can only be experienced in what I call Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), because SVB is the kind of talking in which the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an appetitive contingency. In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), on the other hand, the speaker controls the behavior of the listener with an aversive contingency. Since these two subsets of vocal verbal behavior have not been identified and analyzed verbal behavior remains a hot potato, since it strikes directly at the core of everything that is wrong, destructive and negative about our most practiced way of talking. 

It is needed that we explore and analyze the reinforcing effects of our verbal behavior during our conversations. To differentiate between direct and indirect effects, the non-mediated and the mediated effects, we must talk and be willing to accept many unpleasant, punishing effects, which are part of the talking we are most familiar with: NVB. Given the fact that most verbal episodes consist primarily of instances of NVB, people naturally move away from aversive stimulation. However, the problem with escape and avoidance behaviors is that they are direct responses to the environment and prevent verbal behavior. Many if not most of our protective, defensive, non-talkative behaviors are, of course, elicited respondent behaviors, which restrict and often make totally impossible our indirect, operant, approach verbal behavior.

Skinner, who, in writing Verbal Behavior, applied the concepts which he had already worked out experimentally, allowed his private speech to become part of his public speech. Like Darwin, he was quite aware that people would not accept that his words would completely change their public speech, but his already validated experimental knowledge told him to make room for and listen to his private speech. He said resolutely to himself “as behaviorists we’ve got to tackle it sometime.” Of course, he was referring to how our verbal behavior, like any other nonverbal behavior, is determined by environmental variables and that all his research applied to language as a natural phenomenon.

Although “Verbal Behavior” (1957) was theoretical, it was Skinner’s interpretation of how his laboratory experiments relate to language. Since its publication many experiments have been done which have validated his extrapolations. However, none of these experiments dealt with the elephant in the room: the future probability of speaking and listening behaviors are also selected by consequences. When we are in environments in which we cannot speak and are forced to listen, our private speech becomes more pronounced than our public speech. This has led to art as well as to scientific discovery.  SVB, in which speakers listen to themselves while they speak, is both an art and a science. 

June 17, 2015

June 17, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is my eight and last response to “Zen and Behavior Analysis” (2010) by Roger Bass. Even if Hamlet became a Zen Buddhist, he would never say “to be or not to be or neither.” Since his old repertoire would have been extinguished,, he would only say the word “neither,." His new Zen repertoire, which is without “to be or not to be” wouldn’t make any sense. Most likely, however, Hamlet wouldn’t say the word “either” either, because his Zen meditation would have taught that saying or thinking that word would trigger “to-be-or-not-to-be” private speech. Although as an enlightened Master Hamlet would have “public behavior” which would be “fluent, presumably very sensitive to the environment and seemingly without mediation,” behavior analysts aware of SVB would immediately hear that he was having NVB, even if he wasn’t opening his mouth. The emperor without clothes seems to have reincarnated into a Zen master without words.

The subject-object relation exists because of NVB and once NVB stops our faulty knowledge stops. Stated differently, once SVB begins, Zen-nonsense ssmply stops. It is not that “Other distinctions born from an I-world (subject-object) relation would also become untenable.” In SVB nothing becomes untenable, as the knowledge expressed in SVB is sufficient to the individual.   To be with “No I” and to have “no life or death and no I that suffers”, one must have SVB and one must of course be in a situation which allows SVB. Instead of creating such a situation Zen patriarchs create a situation for NVB, by being against talking. 

When I was in my teenage years, I read a lot of Zen literature. It helped me move beyond the Catholic thinking of the verbal community in which I had been raised. The dialogues between Zen masters and disciples delighted me because of the seemingly original answers that were given by the Zen masters. As I grew older and  familiarized myself with Zen meditation these dialogues seemed more and more dull.  I became interested in meditative communication.

 

When the meditation had ended, people would drink tea and slowly began talking again. Whenever that happened I felt disturbed and  the natural thing to do was to talk about it. However, every time I opened my mouth, I was rejected, avoided, stopped, punished, send away, shamed and ignored. It  was a painful period of my life, but I persisted with my inclination to talk about meditation. It seemed to me that the quietness and peacefulness we had experienced during our meditation should carry on in our talking. Although I wanted to achieve this, I was unable to accomplish it, but I was at the same time intrigued about why this was such an impossible thing to do. It was because of the repeated rejection and my failure to engage in what I now call SVB that I ended up talking with myself. 

 I was hyper-sensitive to rejection and predicted it correctly. It was  frustrating there seemed to be no way to talk about this. One day, I got on my bicycle, to go to some place where I used to hang out,, but while I was on my way there something stopped me. I was thinking about the people I was going to meet and I suddenly didn’t want to see them anymore. It would have been more of the same conversation. I had to do something, but didn’t know what. 

While I was thinking about my previous conversations,, I began to peddle my bicycle slower and slower until it came to a stop. I stood next to my bicycle and felt afraid. I was trembling and I was not successful in calming myself down. I stood there for couple of minutes, which seemed like an eternity. It was next to a canal and a big ship was slowly passing by. The bridge nearby was open. By looking around I regained a sense of calmness. I told myself to go home. For a moment, I thought I was going to ride my bicycle back home, but decided to walk back home with my bicycle in my hand. As I came closer to my home, the fear of not knowing what to do  increased. What was I to do? It seemed as if everything I could have done had been done. There was nothing left to do. My wife was at work and I was at home alone. 

I went into the empty attic of our house. There was only an old carpet on the wooden floor. I sat on that carpet and thought about Buddha who must have meditated often. I tried to close my eyes, but it was so sunny that I opened them again. I stared into the attic space and then I saw underneath the roof a small box. I was curious what was in it. It must have been left by the old people who used to live there. They were too old to climb the stairs and were now living on the ground floor. The box contained some old novels. I took them out one after the other, but then I saw a small gong. It had a string on it and I held it up by its string. I wondered if there was also a stick with a ball on it? I reached in the box and found it. I held the stick with the cotton ball in one hand and the gong in my other hand. I struck the gong and heard its sound and then I said to myself " sounds good.” As I said that I heard my voice and that I was sounding good. I instantly felt good It was a discovery. The gong taught me to sound good. When I sound good, I feel good. 

I had found what I had been looking for. This is how I wanted to talk. I wanted to sound good while I speak. I sat there striking the gong many times and while talking with myself tears rolled down my cheeks. I told myself that everything was going to be fine and that from now on I was going to listen to myself while I speak. I told myself that others can also listen to themselves while they speak and that we can talk like that. The well-being from listening to my own voice was so profound that I laid on my back and fell asleep. 

When I woke up I wanted to go to my friends and tell them about what I had found. I tried to explain it to them and told them about listening to myself and that they could also do that. It  didn’t work out very well. Many people were just as tired of me as I was of them. I had to go back again into my attic to hear my gong. When I struck it and matched its sound with the sound of my own voice, I realized  thatI had stopped listening to myself while I had been talking with my friends. I practiced again and again until I had found this peaceful sound, the sound with which I wanted to talk. 

Since at that time I didn’t know anything about behaviorism or about environments stimulating and maintaining my behavior, I was beating myself up over the fact that I again and again lost the sound with which I wanted to speak. Again and again I went back to my attic to practice by myself what I now call SVB. 

 My old friend Lak, who always drank and smoked pot, said that he liked what I did and he encouraged me to continue with it. With him I was able to explore for the first time what happens when two people listen to themselves while they speak together. We spend days talking with each other, while walking through the city, over the beach or in the park. Although I needed to repeatedly correct him because he was not listening to himself, he also numerous times corrected me because I was not listening to myself. As time went by and our friendship blossomed, a time during which he used less drugs and drank less, it became apparent that I had really found something. Especially when other friends joined us it became more and more interesting. SVB was and is totally enjoyable and energizing.

June 16, 2015

June 16, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing will be my seventh response to “Zen and Behavior Analysis” (2010) by Roger Bass. I had a conversation with friendly, shy man at the swimming pool. He told me he had multiple sclerosis and swimming helped him. I felt like telling him about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), because he seemed open to me. I explained that one can have SVB by oneself as well as with others. The key principle is that one listens to oneself while one speaks. I told him that if he is at ease, relaxed and calm, he can hear that in the sound of his voice and enhance that if he keeps making that sound and listening to it. He became suddenly very enthusiastic and told me he was reading the bible, sometimes many times a day. It had made him aware of exactly what I was talking about. He had felt much better after he had been reading out loud, that is, after he had been listening to his own voice. Because he was so shy he had never talked much and didn’t get to hear his voice very often,, but after he began reading his bible out loud, his body had felt much better and he was also more clear in his head. He said he didn’t pay attention anymore to the words of the bible,, but he mainly used it as an opportunity to listen to the sound of his own voice and he was even jokingly imagining that he was hearing God talk through him.

 I explained that SVB it is just a natural phenomenon. He was happy  I talked with him and when I came out of the swimming pool after I swam a few laps,, he was waiting for me and wanted to share a verse from the bible which related to what we had talked about: in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. He was so excited that he had recognized in his own voice his sense of well-being and he gave me a hug and thanked me. Listening to our voice is very reinforcing.  

I also received a letter from my Dutch friend  Lak who recently moved to Spain. It is unknown what made him decide that or how it is possible for him to do this,, but he seems to be happy there and I am happy for him. He commented on his hand writing, which was clearer than before and he expressed himself coherently and elegantly in his letter. With him I exchange only written letters. Today’s letter feels like receiving a present. He also complimented me about my writings as he appreciates them very much. 

“At the start of koan study, Zen monks are often told  that they will feel as if they have swallowed a molten pellet that will burn until resolved” (underlining added). They are told by the Zen master who does all the speaking and I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) . They are only supposed to listen and any kind of speaking behavior on their part is stopped. In Zen the annihilation of verbal behavior is considered to be a good thing. And, similar to many other spiritual practices,, monks are told that the reward will come later, after they have been purified by their suffering. The Zen koans are meant to relieve them from the burdens of their world view. They experience enormous distress because “verbal behavior, whose use is encouraged throughout life and is left to operate unrestrained by instruction on how to control its effect on the rest of our behavior.” 

Ironically, behavior analysis is often used to teach verbal behavior to autistic non-speaking children. Zen, seems to be teaching its follower to become autistic. The only difference is that the “first fruits of Zen study often do not blossom for years, sometimes decades” because “verbal behavior is fluid and integrated into so much of our repertoire.” What are these so-called fruits anyway? All we have as evidence is some weird acting authoritarian Zen masters. I think SVB is needed, but Zen repertoire or any other NVB isn’t useful for becoming “affected by the larger context,,” The benefit of SVB is that it  works immediately and everyone can experience and verify it while they are talking.  

    

However, without SVB, even behaviorists will not be “affected by the larger context”. Koans are in fact no different than any other sales technique to gain compliance. When “comprehension is Zen, and not of Zen” Buddhists are fooling themselves that they are somehow beyond verbal behavior. Like gullible costumers they are suckered into buying into whatever they are sold. This tradition is kept alive by Zen masters who all pretty much say the same things. Zen is not as Bass proclaims “difficult for Westeners” Behaviorists who know about SVB, see right through the cheapZen scheme.  Zen,, like any other religion, is make-belief. 

Although behaviorists are more into writing and reading than into speaking and listening,  they are still more into speaking and listening than any Zen Buddhist. Consequently, they are not inclined to replace “a typical verbal community’s practices” such as those of their own behaviorist community, with  those“Zen masters use to generate verbally unmediated responding.” Why would any  behaviorist want to know whether he or she is “progressing toward Satori?” Bass writes that“persons who operate within different paradigms literally do not perceive the world in the same way and so may not be able to effectively communicate.” Those who buy into the idea of less talking are of course less effective when they talk.  

A striking example of that was illustrated by the aftermath of the tsunami which hit Japan. Thousands of people had drowned and coastal towns had been devastated and survivors, due to their Zen culture, were unable to cope with the loss, of their loved ones as they didn’t know how to talk about their emotions. Instead of “Zen master’s conversations” which are “meaningless to those with typical verbal histories, this would be a very different, more life-like, interpretation of Skinner’s words that “different verbal communities generate different kinds and amounts of consciousness and awareness”(Skinner, 1976). However, I do agree with “the study of subjective states requires the study of verbal communities practices,,” because this will finally make us realize that different verbal communities have SVB and NVB in common. Such a realization, unlike Satori or Samadhi, would be tremendously revolutionary. 

Zen and behaviorism part ways on many more issues than only on meaning.  “In Zen, meaning is communicated by creating the singularity – conditions under which verbal behavior is excluded – whereas behavior analysis requires describing and controlling the conditions under which a word is used.”   The Zen master speaks and the Zen student listens, but behavior analysis explains “the Zen master’s baffling verbal behavior” simply as NVB, as demanding, dominating and distracting the listener’s attention.

Bass assumes that “behavior analysts and Zen Buddhist may agree that [knowledge] returns to a larger world that generates verbal behavior but is not itself affected by verbal behavior in anything like the way like normal-life repertoires are affected “(underlining added). Presumably, in the strange world of Zen there are no actual people  affected by the verbal behavior of other people? Isn't verbal behavior a consequence of a verbal community? The community which has generated the verbal behavior is of course also affected by it. To state that the community of Zen people is not itself affected by their verbal behavior that it has generated, reduces people who live in that community into objects. This is yet another perfect illustration of how NVB creates it’s an own unscientific reality. Zen’s fanatical  rejection of normal-life repertoire is equivalent with NVB which makes us talk in an abnormal manner.  The illusion that Zen “produces an unmediated perception” of the world  and is based on "a stimulus singularity”, which “challenges the science of behavior” is ludicrous. Like other sectarian behaviors Zen must be exposed.