June 2, 2015

June 2, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

Referring to the verbal distinction between structure versus function Catania concludes “we have a static as opposed to a dynamic psychology” (1973),. However, it was never the difference between a behavioral and cognitive perspective which side-tracked “inquiry from the actual interactive process between organism and environment.” What happened was that people, (behaviorists and cognitivists alike) were trapped by Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  This so-called “inquiry from the actual interactive process” between organism and environment” always involved individuals, who were either talking at or with each other. In the former, they have NVB, in the latter, they have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB).  In the former, there is no real conversation, but in the latter, there is inquiry, and the communicators investigate the conversation while talking.

It never had anything to do with whether “there is no such thing as a conceptual understanding of the world”, or whether we have  an awareness “about problems based in the way we use language.” Our so-called “attachments to both words and worldly possessions” never prevented us from being or “staying in touch, with, or under control of an ever-changing environment.” Words themselves were never the reason for mentalism,, but NVB was, and yet, we haven’t even began to talk about it. We can only talk about it once we have SVB , once we are scientific about talking itself.

“Semantics seem to emphasize the concealing/limiting features of language”, but it is NVB which is “concealing/limiting”, Only SVB  can transcend “this same language which is itself infused with repetitive forms and person as initiator, subject-predicate, structure” and prevent us from getting bound by “the necessity to use standard syntactical structures.” The reason we don’t know about this, is because we haven’t had enough SVB, but once we have more SVB, it becomes apparent that talking about the functional perspective requires us to be able to maintain SVB.

Skinner expresses mostly SVB and “acknowledges the interdependence or mutuality of control.”   If   a scientist is “being as much under control of the laboratory animal as vice versa”   then behaviorist s should have SVB in which speakers become listeners and listeners become speakers. “Thoroughgoing integration of the students with their environment” involves turn-taking in the conversation. We lost the “dynamic interdependence of the three components – discriminative stimulus (or antecendent), response and reinforcement/punishment ( consequence)” while we speak, because someone is supposedly only the speaker/stimulus and someone else is only expected to be the listener/ response/reinforcr. Since the “vital feature of the interdependence of these three components lies in the integration of environment and organism” we must realize, while we talk, that we are each other’s environment. I agree with Williams “a comparison is warranted with artists who are controlled more by the immediate reinforcement of what they see as the brush is moved on the canvas than by the question of who will buy the canvas. “  That immediacy is needed to have SVB.