November 4, 2016

November 4, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my tenth response to “The Power of the Word May Reside in the Power of Affect” (2007) by Jaak Panksepp. The power of affect can only be revealed as long as there is no aversive stimulation during our interaction. Only during Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) are we “wise” enough “to recognize that the neocortex, that obligatory processor of linguistic abilities, has no intrinsic power to be conscious on its own.”

In Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), we falsely assume it is all about what we say and therefore we speak in a disembodied, unconscious, mechanical manner, like talking heads. Indeed, “without the basic attentional, emotional and motivational powers of the non-linguistic subcortical regions, it [the neocortex] would be perpetually asleep.”  

When people are for the first time introduced to the SVB/NVB distinction, they are totally shocked to learn they were unconscious due to their own way of talking; only SVB makes us conscious. NVB “reflects an impoverished understanding of language.” And, NVB makes people “cling to the evolutionary-psychology “dream” (or “nightmare”) that the human cortex contains abundant evolutionarily-honed functional “modules” as opposed to enormous epigenetic potentials.”

I fully agree with Panksepp, who is unknowingly, but correctly, calling the NVB “dream” a “nightmare.” However, it is not only “unlikely”, it is absolutely impossible “that basic learning and conditioning could proceed without affective rewards.” Learning always requires SVB as NVB can’t and doesn’t produce “affective rewards.” Panksepp praises Shanahan for “swimming against the tide of non-affective cognitivistic thought” as he doesn’t yet know how to flow with the SVB stream.