May 8, 2015

May 8, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Our ability as speakers to produce higher rates of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is determined by the extent to which our environments support that we listen to ourselves while we speak. Aversive environments give rise to high rates of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which prevent speakers from listening to themselves while they speak. Threatening situations are not conducive to SVB, as they trigger autonomic responses, fight, flight or freeze responses that make social engagement impossible. SVB will only occur in appetitive-stimulating environments. There is no question as to whether it will occur or not. If it doesn’t occur, there are aversive stimuli which are preventing SVB.

SVB teaches us that there is no difference between the environment which is within our own skin and environment which is outside of our skin, that is, SVB is rooted in naturalism, which considers all problems amendable through the methods of empirical science. Stated differently, SVB is neither based on presumed supernatural or spiritual laws nor is it based on cultural artifacts, which endow individuals with superstitious beliefs in an autonomous self or agent, which functions essentially like a mini-deity. SVB can be verified and replicated because it is based on the philosophy that only natural laws and forces operate in the world. The distinction between the world within and outside of ourselves is considered unscientific and is maintained by NVB. 

Although we have become scientific about many things, we have remained trapped by NVB, because we are unscientific about how we talk. Ironically, NVB demonstrates that we are almost constantly in conflict with each other, because we all view, what we consider to be, the external environment, in our own way. There is an explanation for that and its called conditioning. Our bodies behave the way they do, that is, we act the way we do, and, we also think, feel, see, believe, talk and hypothesize the way we do, because our behavior is reinforced. It goes against our beliefs, our conditioning, that we are not responsible for our behavior and that the mentally ill, criminals or drug addicts, therefore, like us, behave the way they do because their behavior is reinforced. No behavior can ever occur un-caused, magically, miraculously.

Thus, although many of us have known that SVB is possible, we could not continue with it as long as we thought that we caused it and, consequently, mankind drags on with its NVB. Supposedly, we need to pray, meditate or become conscious or nonviolent, but all spiritual practices and methods of self-improvement could never provide us with the scientific account of how we actually talk. It is not accidental that we have remained so unscientific about how the speaker affects the listener: all our power structures depend on the continuation of NVB. Stated differently, SVB will create a new order.

We have yet to establish the conversation in which we open up each other to discuss the tremendously beneficial effects of SVB. When you engage in SVB for the first time, you experience this is something you have always known and wanted, but were unable to maintain or recreate.  Those who have explored SVB scientifically have acknowledged that SVB is the spoken version of of what has until now only been written. Moreover, they recognize that the absence of scientific vocal verbal behavior has led to an overemphasis and reliance on scientific textual verbal behavior, which has led to the devaluation of talking. Scientists argue that written language is considered to be more important than spoken language, because of its greater accuracy, but upon discovering SVB they are amazed and surprised that they agree that vocal verbal behavior can produce greater accuracy than their writing.  

It is easy to understand we speak English or Russian, because we have been conditioned to do so. We were reinforced for our English or Russian verbal behavior by our English or Russian verbal community. In the case of language, it is obvious that unless an individual is in the situation in which he or she is conditioned to speak, write and read, he or she remains illiterate. Literacy refers to how a person’s neural behavior, his or her body, due to conditioning, was changed. You can say to someone in your native language “I have pain in my stomach”, because your body changed after you became literate. Not only did you become capable of speaking about what you feel in your body, your ability to speak made you conscious that you have a body and, that who you are is merely one of the constructs in the language which you speak. 

The point of this whole explanation is that you are aware of what is inside of your skin as well as what is outside of your skin, because of language, which, as we just discussed, was made possible due to changes within your own skin. Regardless of whether you talk about what you experience in your body (e.g. stomach pain) or your environment (e.g. thunderstorm), you are only capable of doing this because of your language, which, in the process of learning how to speak, read and write, involved the conditioning, that is, the alterations of the neural behavior of your body. Another way of saying this we verbally and non-verbally behave our environment, which is within as well as outside of our skin. When we refer to the neural behavior which makes this verbal behavior possible, we should say that we behave non-verbally our verbal behavior. 

This is why the distinction between SVB and NVB is important, because in SVB there is congruence between the nonverbal and the verbal, while in NVB there is a difference between how we say it and what we say. Another aspect of this is that in NVB a person’s covert private speech is excluded from overt public speech, while in SVB covert private speech can become overt in public speech. Although private speech is a function of public speech, in NVB, in which private speech is thrown out of public speech, speakers are unconscious, that is, they speak in a mechanical fashion. It becomes very obvious that positive self-talk is a natural and inevitable consequence of SVB and negative self-talk is always a consequence of NVB. Once we have understood the effects of SVB and NVB, it is self-evident that SVB makes us and keeps us conscious, while NVB makes us and keeps us unconscious.

It is no exaggeration to say we are unconscious because of how we talk. A different way of talking makes us conscious. Moreover, we realize that being conscious, rather than becoming more silent, as many supposedly enlightened people makes us believe, requires us to engage in ongoing conversation with each other. Furthermore, consciousness is embodied vocal verbal behavior, SVB, which will only be possible, whenever threat or aversive stimulation, and NVB is absent. Stated differently, we only experience ourselves as one with our environment, as long as our body experiences a sense of well-being. Due to the aversive influences which are both maintained and increased by NVB, our neural behavior is conditioned to remain in a perpetual sense of fear, anxiety and stress, but SVB reliably reverses this dehumanizing process.