September 18, 2015

September 18, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

The following writing is my thirteenth response to “Some Relations Between Culture, Ethics and Technology in B.F. Skinner” by Melo, Castro & de Rose (2015). Skinner tentatively states that “An educated man is perhaps better able to adapt himself to his environment or adjust to the social life of his group, and a culture which emphasizes education is probably more likely to survive. . .” Behaviorist education without Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is not going to cut it. If survival of the culture is the goal, SVB is a must. However, he didn’t and couldn’t have formulated it, because there was no empirical evidence to back it up. I have given hundreds of seminars in which SVB was achieved by all the participants. In each seminar the participants from all walks of life agreed when someone was having SVB or Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). In spite of our conditioning, we can still recognize our SVB by listening to ourselves while we speak. This allows us to join speaking and listening behavior, which in NVB happen at a different rate.

“According to Skinner (1968), the behavior of the entire system

influences educational policy.” The “entire system” is maintained by NVB. The “global and local problems” different cultures have yet to face can be summarized as the ubiquity of NVB. The “cultural practices to solve these problems” must be defined as forms of SVB. “Techniques that promote development of SVB” are simple, easily obtainable and without any costs. SVB has to be understood as the new way of talking in which we co-regulate instead of dis-regulate each other. “Skinner (1953/1965) claimed that science can accelerate the practice of changing practices. He asserted that science can make remote consequences of behavior effective. He, as well as many behavior analysts, stressed the urgent need that science and technology speed up the design of practices with positive survival value.” Did it happen?

It didn’t and couldn’t happen as neither Skinner, nor other behaviorists proposed we should aim to change the way in which we talk. Our high rate of NVB and our low rates of SVB prevents the “practice of changing practices.” Stated squarely, NVB is a coarse-grained behavior, which simply lacks the precision that is needed to be specific and scientific.

Denying “the ontological distinction between values and facts” is great in theory, but unless we adhere to this while we interact with each other, it will not become part of our reality. It has not become part of our relationships as we didn’t yet address the importance of how we talk with each other. We keep addressing what we say, but how we talk with each other determines whether what we say makes any sense. In NVB our senses are not stimulated in the same way as in SVB. When we know about the SVB/NVB we will agree that NVB made us senseless.

“The main value prescribed by Skinner is the good of the culture, that

should be in balance with the welfare of individuals in a well-designed culture.” But, how do we talk with each other in such a culture? It can’t be our usual way of talking. Our way of talking needs to change if any of this is to become reality. Not a word about that in this paper. It appears as if this balance is going to come about just by itself. “As Richelle (1993/2003) points out, “Individual happiness converges here with the future of the species: education, as concerned with the future of society, should aim at preserving diversity, which is recognized as an essential factor in survival, in a Darwinian sense” (p. 175). Emphasis on education is in the right direction, but is not addressing the talking that is needed to teach this. In my talks with behaviorists, I have found they are not tolerant of diversity. Their NVB focus is only on what they say and how they say it doesn’t seem to matter. In this way behaviorists are just like everyone else. Those knowledgeable about the science of human behavior should be leading the way, as Skinner did, with SVB.   

If there is anything important people who don’t have developmental disabilities should learn from “the education and treatment of children with developmental disabilities” it is that such education requires a different way of speaking than the way of speaking we are all familiar with. What works for the developmentally disabled also works for us.

“It is doubtful, however, that behavioral technology has developed sufficiently enough to support the design of a whole society, as advocated by Skinner, especially in his early works.” I agree and I feel like the authors that this reference to Skinner’s earlier works holds the key. Although “whole schools have been designed based on behavioral technology, with promising results”, such experiments simply aren’t comprehensive enough to the much-needed “designing the education of a whole culture.” A topic of broader reach needs to be addressed.

The authors reason that “applying a behavioral technology to a whole society would still raise the questions of who would set the goals, who would make decisions, and how?” This question will be answered by SVB. I hope I am able to talk with them. If people have the choice between SVB and NVB, they will choose SVB all the time. Currently, they have no choice as nobody has ever pointed out the SVB/NVB distinction. The behavioral technology will only be working to “make individuals free” if it is taught with SVB, but as long as it is taught with NVB it will only “benefit those in charge of controlling agencies.”

Let’s make no mistake, the NVB speaker only uses the listener as a means to his or her ends. A NVB speaker is not the least interested in bi-directional communication with the listener, which dissolves the hierarchical relationships which are phylogenetically determined. Only a SVB speaker is fully verbal because he or she invites the listener to speak and allows him or her to listen to him or herself. SVB behavioral technology “is not devoid of values.” SVB is “not ethically neutral” as it is always against NVB. Within every culture there is a battle between SVB and NVB. In every culture there is more NVB than SVB. The reason this is so is because we don’t know how to have more SVB. If we have a choice, we would choose SVB, but we don’t yet have that choice. That choice will only be ours if we become more familiar with the SVB/NVB distinction. This writing cannot make us familiar with that distinction. No writings or readings could have affected the way in which we talk with each other, because talking and listening behavior is maintained by other independent variables than reading and writing behavior.  

September 17, 2015

September 17, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

The following writing is my twelfth response to “Some Relations Between Culture, Ethics and Technology in B.F. Skinner” by Melo, Castro & de Rose (2015). “Skinner points out that positive control may generate delayed aversive control (Skinner, 1971/2002).” When the listener experiences the speaker as sounding aversive, the speaker is producing Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), which directly affects the listener. It is the listener who determines whether the speaker has NVB or Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), in which the speaker’s voice induces a positive affective experience in the listener. The listener may learn not to object to the NVB speaker and avoid more intense aversive control in the future, but the listener is already aversively controlled by the NVB speaker. In effect, the listener learns to postpone his or her SVB by letting the speaker have his or her NVB. For instance, the student who finds his or her teacher boring and repetitive is not in the position to correct the teacher’s dominating speaking behavior and sits through the class obediently, but is not engaged. The student would rather hear something interesting, which engages him or her, but to request SVB from the teacher and to ask him or her to stop his or her NVB, would be inappropriate and most likely leading to negative consequences. In my class, however, students are rewarded for regulating their teacher.

“By producing precurrent behaviors that allow self-government, the technology of teaching could enable individuals to escape from positive contingencies whose long-term consequences are aversive; the technology can, thus, produce freedom (Skinner, 1968, 1971/2002).” It should be noted here that Skinner describes the freedom he found as he learned to “escape from positive contingencies whose long-term consequences are aversive.” Due to his self-government, by following his own train of thought, his private speech, he was able to continue with his own version of SVB. He understood that instant gratification couldn’t produce freedom. The long-term consequences of Skinner’s behaviorism were certainly very positive for him personally, although this is not equally true for every other behaviorist. His behaviorism explains why SVB works. Unlike most other behaviorists, Skinner would have engaged in it, as he was already engaging in it all the time, although he never called it SVB. The better we get at discriminating aversive stimulation, the easier it is to avoid it and the less of a need we have to escape from it. To the extent that avoidance behaviors work optimally, we only approach events which are reinforcing to us. SVB has guided my life in the same way that behaviorism guided Skinner’s life.

I am grateful to these authors who summarize Skinner’s work in such a way that I learn. “When education promotes a vast and efficient repertoire, when it teaches students to do tasks without constant teacher assistance, it produces behavior that is “free” from people. When student’s behavior is shaped and maintained by the natural consequences of their behavior rather than by approval, admiration or attention, we then have an education for freedom.” However, the need to be “free from people” is only there due to NVB. With SVB this need doesn’t even arise. Education has not taught people to have SVB. To the contrary, it conditioned them to have NVB.

“Natural consequences of behavior” can only shape our behavior after the establishment of SVB, when our public speech is guided by our private speech. At some point the behavioral cusp must be attained, due to which our private speech is beginning to regulate our public speech. However, because of NVB, we are led to consider our private speech as separate from our public speech. The conflict between what we say to ourselves and to each other dissolves completely during SVB.  Thus SVB public speech is the solution to our NVB private speech. Stated differently, NVB causes many psychopathologies, which can only be remediated by SVB.

As Skinner stated “freedom is a matter of contingencies of reinforcement.” His SVB repertoire “maximally avoided aversive or punishing stimuli” and consistently gained “some kinds of positive consequences”. It is not “the technology of teaching” which “has a fundamental role in building behavioral repertoires that produce freedom”, but it is SVB which creates and, most importantly, maintains the contingency that produces and enhances freedom. Although, in this sense, we may be “free if we visit a library and know how to read, if we buy a musical instrument and know how to play it,” yet, we are not free to meet and talk with others and to listen to them. For that, we need to be informed about the SVB/NVB distinction. That is, “we are free to have a future if we have a repertoire that allows us to examine our current cultural practices and so, identify practices that potentially cause problems.” NVB causes us nothing but problems.

Behavioral technology is only ethical to the extent that it is talked about in a SVB manner. If it is talked about in a NVB manner it is unethical. Any kind of aversive stimulation is unethical. Skinner refers to SVB in Walden Two when Frazier, the behavioral engineer, says  “the problems of society called for something more, and that was where a behavioral technology could make its contribution. Five other principles were needed:. . . Transmit the culture effectively to new members through expert child care and a powerful education technology. . . . Regard no practice as immutable. Change and be ready to change again. Accept no eternal verity. Experiment. (p. 346).” SVB is an interaction which is without any problems. All our problems are caused and maintained by NVB. SVB is defined by each of the above five principles. I emphasize the last four “Regard no practice as immutable. Change and be ready to change again. Accept no eternal verity. Experiment,” as these describe exactly what is needed to have SVB.

“An educational technology based on behavior analysis aims to minimize—if not to eliminate—aversive educational contingencies”. This can only be approximated by increasing our rates of SVB and by decreasing our rates of NVB. The goal of SVB is extinction of NVB. “Teaching self-control and self-government techniques—that is, teaching students how their behavior works” is only possible due to the presence of SVB.

September 16, 2015

September 16, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

The following writing is my eleventh response to “Some Relations Between Culture, Ethics and Technology in B.F. Skinner” by Melo, Castro & de Rose (2015). These authors agree with Skinner, who stated “to promote originality, an educational technology should also enable the student to explore new environments and solve new problems. Quantity of behavior is also relevant, though not sufficient.” However, not a word in this paper has been written about the kind of interaction that makes all of this possible. It is often assumed that if we get the content right then everything will work out, but as Skinner’s work has demonstrated, this is not true. The success of his work, which, although it is slowly getting bigger over the years, is still relatively small if we look at the low status of behaviorism in academia, is often mistakenly attached to his theories rather than to how he talked. 

Skinner was an exceptionally kind talker. He had a lot of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in each of his explanations. If we compare Skinner’s calming sound to Chomsky’s infuriating tone of voice, we have an good example of how SVB compares to Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  It makes a big difference whether one has a big “quantity” of SVB or NVB. Chomsky in that sense is more like Trump. What many people don’t realize is that Chomsky is famous for his NVB. In spite of all his talk about justice, most of his speech sounds aversive. Trump, however, is more direct about the fact that his speech is noxious. Like any other thug he takes pride in his forceful demeanor. Although Chomsky is more soft-spoken than Trump, also his speech evokes negative affect in the listener. Skinner’s sound is very different compared to these two demanding men. The rate of his SVB allowed him to accomplish as much as he did. However, many behaviorists couldn’t accomplish as much as he did as they had much lower rates of SVB in their speech. Since behaviorism can only be properly promoted by SVB speakers, NVB behaviorists keep shooting themselves in the foot.

Currently (this was written on 9/16/15) Trump is up in the poles by promising he will make America great again. Similarly, behaviorist authors are writing a paper as they want to make education and culture great again. “A technology of teaching should teach the student how to produce environments that enable the emergence of creative behavior in their own repertoire. Ultimately, education for creativity can strengthen a culture by producing new cultural practices that solve the problems it has found or is going to find.” I don’t disagree with this, but think these authors will be unsuccessful in fulfilling their promise. The fact that they don’t mention the importance of spoken communication indicates they are mostly involved in NVB, in spite of their good intentions and, although, most likely, they have more SVB than non-behaviorists. This is nothing to be ashamed of or to upset about. It is a sad fact that we have all been conditioned by NVB.

Even the Dalai Lama has mostly NVB and so has the Pope, Obama, Ophra or Amy Goodman. SVB is a behavioral cusp not easily acquired. It can only be learned by repeated exposure to someone who knows what it is, who can explain it and keep it going. When people recover from alcohol or drugs this is always accompanied by a change of environment. If they recover they no longer hang out with those who are using and they will no longer surround themselves with the stimuli which maintained their addiction. Likewise, those who recover from NVB are only able to do so as they are stimulated to avoid NVB. They can only do that once they discriminate it as such. It takes me, as a psychology instructor, a whole semester, about seventeen weeks, to condition students to differentiate between SVB and NVB.

I am the first to undertake this important task and students reinforce my work with their behavior in class and by writing wonderful papers.  Many reinforcements become available as their rate of SVB increases and many burdens are resolved as they decrease their NVB. Once they catch onto SVB, they become scientifically informed investigators, who experiment with their newly discovered behavioral repertoire. Rather than solving problems, they learn how to avoid them and not to have them.

Skinner is referring to SVB when he criticizes “the traditional concept of freedom.” He is doesn’t view freedom in terms of “free will” and states “people can, nevertheless, be free from certain kinds of control, although no one can be free from environment. “Freedom is a matter of contingencies of reinforcement” (Skinner, 1971/2002, p. 37).” Once people achieve SVB, they realize most environments they were in were not conducive to it. Most environments, which most often means, most people, exert the coercive control which can only give rise to NVB. Stated differently, most people don’t have the skill to maintain SVB. During SVB speaking and listening are joined as the speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. The speaker as listener creates the contingency that is needed for SVB.

Skinner is “interested in the variables that control the use of the word freedom. The word freedom often refers to getting rid of aversive control (Skinner, 1971/2002).” In SVB, there is no aversive stimulation of the listener by the speaker and the speaker’s voice is perceived by the listener as an appetitive stimulus. We cannot not feel free as long as someone is talking at instead of with us. The speaker who is talking at us, is oppressing us as he or she is not interested in the listener as speaker. He or she cannot be interested in the listener as speaker, as he or she is not listening to him or herself while he or she speaks. Only someone who is listening to him or herself as he or she speaks will be interested in the listener as speaker, who will use the word freedom to describe his or her opportunity to speak. 

We must teach SVB. "Education can work for the development of self-control, facilitating the adaptation of individuals as they come into contact with aversive aspects that were not eliminated from the environment.” It is only due to SVB that we as speakers can trace “aspects that were not eliminated from the environment.” During SVB we recognize NVB, but during NVB we can't recognize SVB. This is as during NVB we are insensitive to our environment, to each other. Better stated, in NVB the speaker is insensitive toward the listener. NVB is my way or the highway.

September 15, 2015

September 15, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

The following writing is my tenth response to “Some Relations Between Culture, Ethics and Technology in B.F. Skinner” by Melo, Castro & de Rose (2015). I enjoy responding to this paper, which stimulates me to become more specific about SVB. I like to write more about behavior that leads to the solution, “precurrent behavior: the preliminary responses which modify the environment or the individual himself and which may favor the emergence of the solution.” It is of utmost importance to understand that sentence in relation to speech.

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) requires environmental modifications, which are inside and outside of our skin. Foremost, we must be in a safe environment, an environment that is without aversive stimulation. Each speaker also modifies what happens within his or her own skin by listening while he or she speaks, that is, by synchronizing and joining his or her speaking and listening behavior. SVB only occurs when speaking and listening happen at the same rate and intensity level. Some people may need to slow down in their speech to have SVB, while others may need to speed up. Some may need to talk less and listen more to have SVB, while others may need to talk more and listen less to have SVB.

Certain questions that a person may be preoccupied with resemble the effects of previous environments in which SVB was impossible. Once SVB is possible these questions lose their importance, while other questions can be asked which could not be asked before. The answers to these new questions emerge from the fact that in SVB the speaker and the listener are one. Moreover, in SVB, also the speaker and the listener who is different from the speaker, experience unity. Since thinking is functionally related to talking, we think how we talk. We don’t, as we so often believe, talk the way in which we think. This is also caused by the fact that NVB public speech excludes private speech and, consequently, negative private speech can’t produce the solution.

“In heuristic problem solving, problem-solving behavior creates

conditions that tend to increase the likelihood of a solution; however, one cannot predict exactly when such a solution will occur.” During SVB we don’t know what we are going to be talking about or explore what we are going to talk about. During SVB we realize that the problem was always NVB. As long as we don’t recognize NVB as NVB and SVB as SVB, NVB will make us believe that SVB is the problem. By accepting the fact that NVB cannot occur without environmental support, we realize that what supports NVB also supports the problem. The absence of SVB teaches us what supports the problem cannot support the solution. The presence of SVB teaches us what supports the solution. The presence of SVB is the absence of NVB. The presence of a problem is the absence of a solution. The problem does not occur if the solution is there. In SVB we engage in an interaction which is without problems. Although we have, in moments, accidentally experienced this delightful possibility, we have not consciously, skillfully and deliberately achieved and maintained such a conversation. Although we may find it hard to believe that SVB is possible, when we have it, it is not difficult at all, because it is effortless and simple. SVB is the solution to our problems.  

SVB is a creative behavior, while NVB prevents creativity. During SVB communicators co-regulate and positively stimulate each other, but in NVB communicators dis-regulate and dominate each other. “A radical behaviorist approach states that creativity can be produced and, therefore, teaching must generate creative behaviors. Creativity can be found not only in selection but in variation as well (Skinner, 1968). Importantly, here we can also identify the values favored by Skinner: it is important to teach existing knowledge and also to teach students to think, and to produce creative behaviors.” SVB can be produced, but only under the right circumstances. Without knowledge about SVB “creative behaviors” are overrated and can prevent us from thinking.

Creativity, like happiness, is idealized. We desire creativity or happiness because our reality is so dull and unhappy. If we are creative or happy, we don’t seek it nor are we compelled to talk about it. We talk about that which we don’t have and we think that it will come to us, because of our private speech. This is not true. If creativity or happiness comes to us it is not because of our private speech, but because of our public speech. Only SVB results into positive self-talk, but NVB always results in negative private speech. There is a lack of knowledge about talking. We know physics, chemistry and biology, but we don’t know about SVB, as hierarchical relationship prevent us from learning about it. So-called creativity is consoling and preoccupying us with childish  fairy tales. And our so-called happiness and excitement is taking us away from human interaction. There are many people who claim to know how to enhance creativity and there are many people who claim to know how to have non-violent communication. Presumably “we can teach students to arrange environmental contingencies that maximize the likelihood of new and creative responses”, but how far can we get with NVB? I am not saying it is impossible, but I claim that without SVB it certainly is.

We should realize once and for all that expressions of art and music have not and could not teach us the behaviors which we need to have mutually reinforcing interaction. We can only learn about that by engaging in and by exploring our conversation. Skinner states “when familiar forms of art and music lose their power to reinforce, new forms are acclaimed just because they are new” (Skinner, 1968, p. 18, emphasis added).” When we engage in SVB, we know we are engaging in something new. SVB is renewing. There is nothing renewing in our conversation due to new forms of art or music. Indeed, we will only have SVB is someone stimulates us and  reinforces us to have it. Currently, other than myself, I don’t know anyone who knows how to do that. The problem with SVB is that it is not only about “the accurate transmission of knowledge.” Such a transmission “can reduce the variability of behavior and decrease the likelihood of original responses”, but it doesn’t produce SVB. Something more is needed. The teacher must have SVB to be able to evoke SVB in his or her students.