December 3, 2014

December 3, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This writing is a response to “Our Overt Behavior Makes Us Human” (2012) by Howard Rachlin. Nowhere is the effect of our overt behavior more obvious than during our spoken communication. “The abstract pattern of overt behavior”, which “occurs in the world outside the organism”, which Rachlin equates with consciousness, is described by this author as Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Stated differently, SVB is “a temporal  [pattern]:…as the notes are to the melody.” Moreover, SVB is defined by “contingencies of reinforcement”, which are entirely different from those, which are the setting event for Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which keeps us unconscious. SVB and NVB are two response classes, which have not yet been considered by behaviorists. 

SVB is definitely a way of communicating, which is “more useful than others” and behaviorists ought to be able to recognize the pragmatism of the old saying that one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar. The mostly NVB of Searle, Chomsky or Pinker is the opposite of the mostly SVB of Skinner or Carr. The reader is urged to listen to the tone of voice of these men. Certainly “there has not yet been enough research on behavioral patterns” but, since we don’t need to reinvent the wheel again and since we can at least agree on calling a spade a spade, we can, in the light of our failed attempts to convince others, perhaps acknowledge the important of the SVB/NVB distinction.

Not only is the SVB/NVB distinction “true because it is useful to behave as if it were true”, it is true in a less philosophical sense, because in every language individuals alternatively communicate with positive or negative emotions. Nowhere will anyone simultaneously express stress and relaxation. It is not in the nature of things. Although no behaviorist can deny this, it is quite another matter to determine - while we are talking - what part of our interaction is a function of the presence of punitive, aversive stimulation, which decreases behavior and what part of our interaction is a function of positive, reinforcing stimulation, which increases, shapes and maintains “fine-grained” behavior. 

Since our environment is “the source of our consciousness” it “would be our overt [verbal ] behavior, not our neural behavior, that is in direct contact with the source.” The "source" is people who are belonging to our verbal community. The communication of our group’s relative sense of security and its organization selects “at the level of classes of patterns” resulting in SVB and NVB.

We have a lot of evidence indicating that selection “acts at the level of innate behavior” and “[may] act[s] as well at the level of learned patterns within the lifetime of a single organism.” However, only SVB includes “our long-term patterns of behavior, including sobriety, moderation, rationality, as well as the language that reflects (and at the same time imposes)” the “organization” of our overt behavior. By contrast, NVB is elicited and maintained by “long-term patterns of behavior” that include our drunkenness, our lack of restraint and boundaries, our traumatized emotions “as well as the language that reflects (and at the same time imposes)” our abuse, dysfunction and the disconnect between what we say and what we do. In other words, NVB disorganizes, while SVB organizes our overt behavior. 

Schlinger gets close to SVB, when he mentions “a..circumstance that probably evokes the term conscious most often, and the one that is of most interest to consciousness scholars and laypeople alike, is the tendency to talk…to ourselves about both our external and internal environments, and our own public and private behavior…” During SVB, verbalizers listen to themselves while they speak. SVB is the mediator’s perspective of how the verbalizer behaves. Moreover, during SVB verbalizers are their own mediator and the speaker is the listener.

Rachlin ends his paper by describing someone who is listening to music by Mozart. He writes “you may study a person’s behavior (or the person himself may study it) as a function of or in the presence of musical notes, of melodies or passages of music, of classical music, of music.” He seems to be talking about a “fine-grained behavior”. It is interesting he should end his paper with a listener’s perspective of music behavior, which is very close to what this author means by SVB. Rachlin  elaborates on the musical metaphor by saying “Some of your descriptions may be made with precision (albeit probabilistic precision) on the basis of relatively brief observations; some will require many extended observations and highly abstract terms.” He refers to verbal behavior when he mentions “descriptions” and differentiates between “brief” and “extended observations”. If musical talent had been applied to verbal behavior, it would have been clear a long time ago that the sound of our voice informs us of what what we say, and how we say it, is function. Without even knowing it, Rachlin,  inspired by music, describes SVB: “As your descriptions progress from the particular to the abstract, they will be getting closer and closer to that individual’s consciousness.” SVB makes and keeps us conscious and NVB makes and keeps us unconscious, yet, in Rachlin’s description sound, which is “Overt Behavior That Makes Us Human, is only mentioned, indirectly, at the very end.

If this writer in his younger years would not have had an English teacher, who read poems in class, he might not have appreciated poetry. The teacher was laughed at by most students. He used to get very upset when they wouldn’t listen. Years later, this author had to go somewhere on his bicycle, but it was raining hard. To make his trip as short as possible, he raced on his bicycle through the park, instead of around it. To his surprise, he saw a lonely man, who was walking slowly in the rain. It was this author’s old teacher. He had recognized him by the way he walked. He asked him why he was walking in the rain and the old teacher explained that he had retired from teaching, because of his mental health problems. This author asked him to come with him and to have a cup of coffee and they had a brief conversation in a nearby coffee house. The teacher related he had gone crazy and that he had always been too much for his students, but this author thanked him and said that he had always liked him very much. There were tears in the old teacher’s eyes and this author told him “you are not crazy.” He remembered a poem this teacher had recited with great furor. It was about the war by some British poet. The students had been making fun of him and he had gotten angry, but this author had enjoyed his poem and he had praised him. This author walked his old teacher back to his home.  

It was inevitable that this author at one point would also try to write a poem. He tried, but in his Dutch native language all that came out was a rambling story, not a poem. Then, because his wife is American and he had gotten used to speaking English, he decided to translate his thoughts in English. This is how his first poem emerged and then for a period, he wrote many poems. 

me

this is myself originally me     

 

there is nothing that I try to be   

 

just being is the key        

 
this goodness and peace that I feel

that is my nature I know it for real

only now I am having the choice

to scream or to sing with my voice

the only thing that I like to do

is to share my heart with you