October 8, 2014

October 8, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

It is full moon today and there is nothing this writer can think of to write about. This creates a situation in which he becomes conscious about the fact that usually something is attracting and holding his attention. Because currently this is not the case, a contrast is created. When nothing in particular is asking our attention, we can begin to see where our attention would go, when we are free to let it go where ever it wants to go. In other words, if nothing is already occupying our attention, then what is asking our attention can get our attention. We pay attention to things very differently, when we don’t have to struggle to pay attention. 

Last night this writer had a dream from which he only remembers one thing: he was carried on the shoulders in some sort of victory round and everyone was applauding him and praising him. Since there was nothing for him to do but to relax, he didn’t do anything. He didn’t even wave or smile, but he just enjoyed the fact that others were honoring him. It was a satisfying experience, but there was no recollection about the situation in which this occurred. It seemed as if this celebration and appreciation just burst through, like a ray of sun that broke through the clouds. Suddenly there was this glorious moment of sheer delight.  

It seems to this writer that he woke up this morning different than usual. The thought about the dream he had had would not have occurred if he didn’t let his attention express in writing whatever at that moment came to his attention. If it wasn’t for that, the dream might have been completely forgotten. Many dreams never get our attention, because our attention is not free to express them. 

Something is usually demanding our attention and whatever that might be, this something is something we usually are trying to move away from. Of course, we are talking about aversive experiences, which we rather don’t have. However, we keep having them if we don’t accept the fact that we are having them. By accurately describing them, we understand negative experiences better and we free ourselves of them.  When there is nothing negative to get away from, nothing is preoccupying our attention and we are free to pay attention to whatever is asking our attention.

October 7, 2014

October 7, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

As this writer reads every day a couple of pages from the highly recommended, well-written book “Running Out Of Time” (2014) by Stephen Ledoux, he becomes more and more convinced that although writing has certainly changed a lot of human behavior for the better, that is, we have become more scientific about things, it is very clear that writing didn’t and couldn’t improve human relationship. 

Writings simply lack the independent variable status that make the dependent variable, our spoken communication, manipulable . Our books and scientific papers create and perpetuate the teleological fiction that in some distant future, due to this knowledge, human beings will change their behavior. However, it didn’t happen. 

While educated people think they have an explanation for why things are the way they are, they have forgotten to analyze and have completely ignored the worst problem of society: spoken communication. They may be scientific about many things, but they aren’t scientific about how humans and how they themselves interact with each other. Hope for a better world has been continuously exploited by those who write and distract the attention from variables of spoken communication, which must be analyzed while we speak. 

Academic writings have stopped the conversation and have made us buy into the fiction that we can do something better than talking: read or watch. Mankind’s search for the causal variables, which make us communicate  the way we do, have only led to more papers, more books, more preaching, more written speeches (done by speakers who supposedly do the talking for others), more debates, more sales pitches and more politics. All of this, according to this author, could only increase NVB. 

Written words oppress spoken words. Compared to medicine which cures disease, written words haven’t had much of a healing effect and didn't alleviated the human condition. The reason has always been that written words can't supply the practical contingencies that involve the environment-controlling, verbal behavior-changing technologies. Functional control of how we talk results from environmental change, but, the environment in which we read and write is entirely different from the environment in which we speak and listen. Thus, to change the way in which we talk, we must attend to our environment, that is, to each other, while we speak.  

This author has given hundreds of seminars in which he reliably controlled the behavior of others. During Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) all participants get in contact with the real variables which cause them to speak the way they speak. As the participants explore and validate the difference between SVB and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), they are again and again utterly surprised that nobody has ever pointed this out to them. Although, due to certain behavioral histories, it is more difficult to point this out to certain people, SVB is always possible and self-evident. It takes a little while, but everyone who participates understands what SVB is! The same is true for the psychology classes which are taught by this author. As the semester progresses all his students eventually get it and participate more in SVB

SVB and NVB are two existing modes of communicating, which have been observed by people from every culture and from very walk of life. We are used to NVB, but we are deprived of SVB. This doesn’t mean that we don’t know the SVB, but that we haven’t been reinforced for it as much as we have for NVB.  This writer has taught so many different people about it that he knows it is possible regardless of history, for everyone to produce it.  For some it takes more work, but it is always possible.

Ledoux ends Chapter 4 by writing that “hopefully” his text “conditions skeptical sensitivity to scientifically inadequate explanations” (p.133). This writer would never use such language. This writer knows that no written texts will or can ever “prepare” for “adequate explanations of behavior." No writing can or will “condition skeptical sensitivity” of NVB. This writer would never  explain SVB as “Let’s make sure we get things as right as possible”, but he acknowledges that the use of such words stem from a vague and insufficient sense of the inadequacy of writing. 

In SVB we are not “hopefully” conditioning new behavior. Although the future isn’t causing our behavior, one experience of SVB is enough to predict what we are more likely to do under similar circumstances. During SVB we look to our future with great anticipation, because, while we know that we are having it, we are benefitted by recognizing the many possibilities we didn’t know we had. This window gives us hope which we otherwise wouldn’t have. NVB makes our outlook grim and negative. In NVB there is nothing to look forward to. Even if we can call the shots, in NVB the oppressors are as stuck in their behaviors as the oppressed. No matter who we are, as long as we engage in NVB, none of us is having his or her needs met.

October 6, 2014

October 6, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This author spoke with his friend and colleague Arturo from Bogota, Colombia. Arturo asked him how he measures Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)? Since this writer organized a SVB seminar at the local library, there was plenty to talk about. 

Thinking about it today, this author, as the mediator, realizes that his attention simultaneously goes to the nonverbal as well as the verbal behavior of the verbalizer. In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the mediator’s attention  goes to the nonverbal or to the verbal behavior of the verbalizer, but it never goes to both simultaneously. The attention of the mediator only goes to both the verbal and the nonverbal behavior of the speaker during SVB. To the extent that SVB can't occur very often, because environments are fear-inducing,  the mediator is conditioned to reinforce NVB and to engage him or herself NVB as a speaker whenever he or she has the chance to. 

 

The attention of the mediator can only simultaneously go to the verbalizer’s nonverbal and verbal behavior, if the verbalizer’s attention simultaneously goes to his or her nonverbal as well as his or her verbal behavior. This only occurs in SVB. Since this is most of the time not the case and since the verbalizer’s attention is most of the time focused on his or her nonverbal behavior or on his or her verbal behavior, or, and this makes things complex very quickly, since the verbalizer’s attention often switches back and forth between the nonverbal and the verbal (due to the reinforcing effects – which can also be nonverbal as well as verbal – that  are produced by the mediator), the verbalizer is very often unable to simultaneously keep his or her attention focused on both his or her nonverbal and verbal behavior. 

Even though the verbalizer may believe to be very verbal, he or she is in fact very often having a nonverbal effect on the mediator. Even when mediators are allowed to become verbalizers (which is also often not at all the case), they are more likely to respond verbally to something which has impacted them nonverbally or visa versa. 

As the speaker's verbal responses often inaccurately describe nonverbal impact, the conversation goes nowhere because the words obfuscate what the communicators experience while they speak. This is NVB. During SVB, by contrast, communicators stay in touch with themselves and with each other non-verbally as well as verbally .     

October 5, 2014

October 5, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer had a wonderful genuine skype conversation with Maria de Lourdes R. da F. Passos. She spoke about how difficult and discouraging it has been for her to get her papers published. Only very few behaviorists are capable of analyzing the linguistics of verbal behavior. For the most part they still seem to be traumatized by the dismissive Chomsky and have some sort of reflexive aversion against the word they came to hate because of him: linguistics. 

Maria fully acknowledged and validated this writer’s explanation of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and agreed with him that written and spoken language require separate levels of analysis.Currently, this writer is reading the book “Running Out Of Time” by Stephen Ledoux. As the title suggests, the book is written with a sense of urgency or perhaps even despair. This writer had also contacted Ledoux and had briefly spoke with him by phone. Although it was a courteous conversation, Ledoux didn’t quite understand this writer’s reason for contacting him. Ledoux remained limited to his teacher’s role of promoting his book and behaviorology.

In his book Ledoux writes about what he says in class to his students. For instance, he writes about how he explains the difference between an unconditioned reinforcer and a conditioned reinforcer (p.122). The difference is easier understood when he explains the former as “attention” (without a verbal component) and the latter, as “praise” (with a verbal component). So, what he is referring to is how he speaks with someone to whom he explains something. The example illustrates the difference between nonverbal attention and verbal praise. 

Reading about this difference it is not the same as hearing about it. Reading about it cannot replace hearing about it, because only hearing it has the conditioning effects, which are enhanced, but are never caused by this or by any other writing. 

Reading about this distinction can only condition knowledge about the verbal praise, but it doesn’t involve anything about nonverbal attention. For that there needs to be face-to-face interaction, that is, two bodies meeting in time and space.. , Writing about attention without words is a necessary part of the scientific process, but is not sufficient. Events must have physical status to be detectable and measurable. Thus, we must talk. 

If people are going be reconditioned into having behaviorological explanations for their behavior this is going to occur as a consequence of a new way of speaking, which will lead to new way of writing. To assume that behaviorological writing and reading will change our way of speaking flies in the face of everything we know about operant conditioning. It didn't happen and it is not going to happen.

There is very little Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in the world. We don’t know what it is, how it works and how to reinforce it. The most important behavior for which we should seek its cause, is our way of talking with one another. No matter how many authors keep writing about changing the conversation, we keep reinforcing Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). We can read, write and study all we want about fictional explanations, such as reification, converting adjectives into nouns, nominal falllacies and circular reasoning, but this has not led and this will not lead to  increased reinforcement and increased levels of SVB, and, eventually, extinction of NVB. The more we kept putting the proverbial horse behind the wagon, the less we have started to actually talk with one another. This is exactly what is happening in all academic disciplines, including behaviorology. 

    

A written account of verbal behavior is as bad as a fictional account, because it doesn’t give us any leverage in intervening with the behavior on which human relationship depends. Most of mankind’s spoken communication problems have remained unresolved because we have falsely assumed that our writings would produce effective interventions. We have yet to come to grips with the sad fact that our analyses were merely writings, which could never find their way to a larger population, because they made interaction more instead of less difficult. 

Once we know about SVB, it becomes crystal clear that we haven’t yet talked like that. Each time we write or read about speaking, we lose track of the fact that we are reading and writing, but not speaking. Moreover, when we read about speaking, it appears as if we are speaking about speaking. The fact is, however, that the exact opposite is true: we are reading about writing and we become more oblivious about speaking. To improve our relationships, we must learn to speak about how we are actually speaking with each other. This cannot be replaced by reading. Only SVB can make us do that. NVB prevents us from exploring our spoken communication.   

October 4, 2014

October 4, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

The verbal conditioning of past generations is completely irrelevant to our modern scientific findings. Animism, the ancient belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself possess souls, continues in a modified form in our language today. Thus, most people still believe that the human body has a soul, which exists apart from it. This becomes apparent when someone dies, because only then are we confronted with this fiction. However, even those who understand and acknowledge that nothing survives death go about their lives as if they are the doers of their own actions.  

Presumably, the difference between active and passive voice indicates that we are becoming more scientific. A sentence in which a subject performs an action, such as: “I wrecked your car”, is said to be less objective, because it was written in active voice. Such sentences are usually shorter and easier to read than when we describe the matter in passive voice. Then, we might say: “your car has been wrecked.” In the former, there is an agent, but in the latter, the agent is left out of the picture.  People generally don’t like to read passive voice, because sentences written in passive voice usually become too long and too wordy and omit agential doers. In other words, passive voice doesn’t “speak” to people as well as active voice does. As the example of active versus passive voice makes clear, attempts to rid language of pre-scientific linguistic fictions has been focused on written, but not on spoken language. 

Fact is, there is neither passive nor active voice in our written language. And, silently reading and writing involves no vocal response. Only in our spoken language do we use our voice. Moreover, by becoming aware of our voice, while we speak, we can become more scientific in our spoken communication. It was not the length or the wordiness of our sentences, which prevented us from becoming scientific. It was the replacement and the neglect of our spoken communication by written words, which perpetuated our unscientific ways of talking. During SVB we find, the longer time we spend talking, the more scientific we will become.