November 9, 2015

November 9, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Students, 

This is my sixth response to “Effectiveness as Truth Criterion in Behavior Analysis” by Tourinho and Neno (2003). I hope you find this interesting to read, but I can imagine that you don’t like it as it may all seem rather theoretical. What I write about is only possible under certain circumstances. It is my aim to describe as accurately as possible the antecedents or the stimuli that set the stage for Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and the postcedents, the stimuli that validate and reinforce it. 

If SVB doesn’t occur, it can’t occur as antecedents prevent it. Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is caused by other events than SVB. Regardless of what these events are, they prevent SVB as SVB can only occur in the absence of NVB. The workings of SVB and NVB are also explained by others, who didn’t yet recognize this distinction, but who were in the process of shaping their behavior in the direction of SVB. Like me, the authors use the writings of other authors to emphasize their point. The difference between me and these authors, however, is that I insist that we should be talking with each other to be able to clarify these matters. 

My writing is grounded in talking and I talk about and enjoy SVB every day. “As pointed out by Haack (1978), since “coherence theories take truth to consist in relations of coherence among a set of beliefs” (p. 86), it is justifiable to confirm that “James’ account on the way one adjusts one’s beliefs as new experience comes in, maximizing the conservation of the old belief set while restoring consistency. . .introduces a coherence element.” We will lack coherence as long as we are unable to continue with SVB. Our lack of coherence is a product of NVB.

You may blame me for being redundant, but my writing about SVB is consistent and coherent. I am amazed that I am doing this and I could have never believed some years ago that I would be writing this. For a long time I felt overwhelmed by the seriousness, precision and dryness of academic writing. Although I never aspired to do that, my journal writing takes on that form as the SVB/NVB distinction is an extension of behaviorism. 

Since I am writing to you my dear students and not to the behaviorist community, who, for the most part never wanted to talk with me anyway, I don’t mind repeating myself or others as this is needed to learn more about SVB. Although they wrote for a different audience, there is, of course, a similarity in the thinking of these authors, James, Skinner and me. Yes, “it is justifiable to confirm that “James’ account on the way one adjusts one’s beliefs as new experience comes in, maximizing the conservation of the old belief set while restoring consistency. . .introduces a coherence element."

SVB, the way of talking I have dedicated my life to, is, like the work of James and Skinner, pragmatic and conservative. It has to be as “In the truth-processes dynamics, when a new belief acquires the status of truth, it “mediates between the stock [of old ideas] and the new experience.” These words of William James resonate so beautifully with SVB. 

“The point I urge you to observe particularly is the part played by the older truths. Failure to take account of it is the source of much of the unjust criticism leveled against pragmatism. Their influence is absolutely controlling. Loyalty to them is the first principle—in most cases, it is the only principle” (James, 1907/1996a, p. 35, italics added). Nothing I have found on the first day that I discovered SVB isn’t true today. You will find the same thing when you would replicate my experiment. Just listen to yourself while you speak and tune into your own sound. 

By listening to yourself while you speak you become aware of the relationship that exists between the speaker and the listener. That relationship within each individual is of utmost importance for the relationship between the speaker and the listener as different people. If the relationship between you as the speaker and you as the listener is disturbed, as it always is in NVB, there are will be problems between you and others, who are trying to listen to you or speak with you.   

The authors write “In Skinner’s radical behaviorism, as in James’ philosophy, the appeal to effectiveness should be subordinated to an assessment of the relationship between new propositions and the ones previously assumed to be valid; on the contrary, one may be faced with inconsistencies.” These inconsistencies are maintained by NVB.  

“The appeal to effectiveness should be subordinated” to the SVB/NVB distinction, to talking about the effectiveness of SVB, as only this will avoid “inconsistencies.” What most behaviorists don’t realize is that they have only worked out “inconsistencies” in their writing, but they also must be worked out in their talking. The fact that this hasn’t happened always shows up in their writings. Agreeing in writing about effectiveness and consistency didn’t and couldn’t result in agreeing while talking. It never did. 

“The definition of the subject matter of a behavioral science in terms of organism-environment relationships and the recognition of the variability or the idiosyncratic character of behavioral relationships” is a perfect starting point for the exploration of the SVB/NVB distinction. Surely, another way of talking is needed which includes instead of excludes “the variability or the idiosyncratic character of behavioral relationships.” The former is SVB, the latter is NVB. “The term behavior must include the total activity of the organism—the functioning of all its parts” (Skinner, 1935/1961b). There can be no doubt about the fact that you are the speaker and the listener.

November 8, 2015

November 8, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Students, 

This is my fifth response to “Effectiveness as Truth Criterion in Behavior Analysis” by Tourinho and Neno (2003). I am writing these words as I am thinking about what many others have also been thinking about. My thinking, however, is a function of what I call Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), whereas the thinking or the private speech of other thinkers switches back and forth, like our daily conversations, between SVB and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Moreover, other thinkers such as the authors of this paper, Skinner and James, although they surely have much more SVB than those who are not into pragmatism and behaviorism, are still unknowingly mostly determined by the ubiquity of NVB. As a consequence, their efforts go mainly into writing about talking rather than in talking about talking. 

Although I am writing about talking, my attention mainly goes to talking about talking. James describes pragmatism as “the method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable.” In doing so, he refers to SVB. In the following statement James brings out his private speech into public speech. However, he mainly uses his writing to imagine what it would be like to speak about what he is thinking. Like Skinner, he was unknowingly describing SVB. “Any idea upon which we can ride, so to speak, any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labor; is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally.” (James, 1907/1996a, p. 34) 

Also the authors of this paper do a nice job of providing a description of SVB. “Truth, accordingly, is not an attribute of beliefs that represent reality in its formal or essential aspects, but a way to refer to whichever beliefs function productively to organize human experience.” It is one thing to read about this, but quite another to talk about it. For a long time the conviction has been that we will eventually talk about “the truth”, if we would study the writings of scientific and philosophic authors. However, this belief has proved to be false. The more we write and read about any scientific truth, the less we talk about it. This brought us to the situation where we are in today in which written words are more important than spoken words. 

Talking about “beliefs” that “function productively to organize human experience” requires SVB and will not be possible if we can't discriminate between SVB and NVB. How can we talk about this if we dysregulate each other? How can we talk about this if we don’t realize that our NVB prevents us from talking about this? Besides, the real work only begins once we have ongoing SVB. NVB imposes its dominance hierarchy as it creates and exploits chaos, but SVB evokes intelligent and refined interaction as we are able to talk about, enjoy and explore the oneness of our natural world. 

“Thus, theories become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest” (James, 1907/1996a, p. 32). In NVB we are stuck on theory, but in SVB we are open to any theory that explains reality.  Our conversation will make us aware there are many matters which we can only talk about when we have SVB. Our scientific disciplines are only useful to us to the extent that we can talk about them and therefore implement them. “Investigators have become accustomed to the notion that no theory is absolutely a transcript of reality, but that any one of them may from some point of view be useful” (James, 1907/1996a, p. 33).

SVB makes theories generated by NVB obsolete. Read carefully the following statement written by William James more than hundred years ago. We still need to learn to talk about what he wrote about. I love James. “To “agree” in the widest sense with reality, can only mean to be guided either straight up to it or into its surroundings, or to be put into such working touch with it as to handle either it or something connected with it better than if we disagreed. Better either intellectually or practically!. . .Any idea that helps us to deal, whether practically or intellectually, with either the reality or its belongings, that doesn’t entangle our progress in frustrations, that fits, in fact, and adapts our life to the reality’s whole setting, will agree sufficiently to meet the requirement. It will hold true of that reality.” 

In SVB we agree, but in NVB, although we don’t realize it, we disagree. Indeed, in SVB we “agree in the widest sense with reality”, whereas in NVB we “entangle our progress in frustrations.” What was true about human interaction back then is still true today. “True ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability and flowing human intercourse.” (James, 1907/1996a, p. 103) Our SVB will establish this long longed-for “consistency, stability and flowing human intercourse.” 

My writing is not, like these authors, a function of a longing for a better way of communicating. To the contrary, it is a function of my ongoing experience and my ever-increasing knowledge about SVB. “James argues that a belief is not true; it becomes true; that is to say, it is made true as it is confronted with the demands following the interaction of men with reality: “Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its very-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation ” (James, 1907/ 1996a, p. 97).” The process James unknowingly was writing about is SVB. 

November 7, 2015

November 7, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Students, 

This is my fourth response to “Effectiveness as Truth Criterion in Behavior Analysis” by Tourinho and Neno (2003). These authors “present an instrumental conception of truth, according to which the truth is “whatever yields the most effective action possible” (Skinner, 1974/1993, p. 259).”” Anyone who is familiar with the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) will agree that this distinction “yields the most effective action possible” as it effortlessly and predictably results into an increase of SVB and a decrease of NVB. Other approaches that attempted to change the way we talk couldn’t accomplish what the SVB/NVB distinction will again and again achieve. 

Just as Skinner took Thorndike’s instrumental learning to a new level with operant learning, the SVB/NVB distinction takes our vocal verbal behavior to a new level. It has this effect as it is based on Skinner’s “instrumental conception of truth.”Skinner calls a response instrumental if it is emitted voluntarily because of its consequence — that is, because of a stimulus (the SVB of others) that follows it. If the SVB speaker is not reciprocated by the listener, this is because the listener, due to his or her NVB history, is incapable of reinforcing the speaker. Only SVB is instrumental or operant as only in SVB the speaker is positively reinforced by the listener, who can become the speaker and take turns with the speaker. NVB, however, is elicited behavior as the listener often isn’t even allowed to speak.

Both in SVB and NVB communicators associate paired events, but only SVB is an example of voluntary, instrumental or operant conditioning, while NVB is an example of involuntary or classical conditioning. Stated differently, SVB is heterarchical, but NVB is hierarchical. Perhaps this difference is even more important than any other description. I have described NVB as hierarchical, but today I realize there must be an opposite to hierarchy. A heterarchy is a system of organization where the elements of the organization are unranked (non-hierarchical) or where they possess the potential to be ranked a number of different ways. 

It doesn’t surprise me to find out that definitions of the term vary among disciplines. Any kind of agreement can only be accomplished if we have the SVB/NVB distinction in place. I suggest we use heterarchy and hierarchy to describe SVB and NVB. These terms also made me think of horizontality versus verticality. I describe SVB as horizontal as it grounds us, but I consider NVB as vertical as it makes us view ourselves and each other as higher or lower in the dominance hierarchy. 

These visual descriptions are quite useful for becoming more focused on auditory cues, which remain ‘out of sight’ due to our NVB. As SVB speakers are more down to earth they sound better than NVB speakers, who think they are better than everybody else. By rejecting “the notion of objectivity as correspondence of truth in favor of an interpretation consistent with the instrumental concept of truth”, Skinner was in my opinion unknowingly referring to SVB. His description “responses to some forms of stimulation are more likely to be ‘right’ than responses to others, in the sense that they are more likely to lead to effective behavior” (Skinner, 1953/1965, p. 139) fits exactly with SVB.  Besides leading to more effective behavior, SVB already is effective behavior.  

SVB responses “are more likely to be right” that is, they are more likely to describe reality accurately than NVB responses. This is not to be taken at ‘face value’, it requires auditory verification. By listening to the difference between SVB and NVB, we recognize and agree that only SVB can promote “identification with pragmatic principles” and that NVB will always obstruct inquiry of practical solutions. “According to Pierce, definitive beliefs, corresponding to reality and unassailable by doubt, would be possible through the application of methods used in experimental sciences, the same resource used to measure the truth or falsity of a belief.” Such verbal behavior must be SVB, but can’t be NVB. 

Only SVB allows us to fully doubt. In NVB we are presumably without any doubt. Only if we allow doubt, can it and will it come to an end. “Therefore, it is in terms of doubt and belief that the notion of truth shall be approached, but “truth is the end of inquiry, that opinion on which those who use the scientific method will, or perhaps would if they persisted long enough, agree” (Haack, 1978, p. 97, italics added). 

Preposterous as this may sound: SVB “is the end of inquiry.” Once we experience the great difference between SVB and NVB, we no longer doubt that we can stop NVB and continue with SVB.  Since we haven’t yet acknowledged the SVB/NVB distinction, we are unable to “persist long enough” with SVB to agree on this. Although it has been tried, we haven’t been successful in creating a scientific spoken communication. 

“The scientific method, Peirce argues, alone among methods of inquiry, is constrained by a reality which is independent of what anyone believes, and this is why it can lead to consensus. So, since truth is the opinion on which the scientific method will eventually settle, and since the scientific method is constrained by reality, truth is correspondence with reality. It also follows that the truth is satisfactory to believe, in the sense that it is stable, safe from the disturbance of doubt.” (Haack, 1978, p. 97). We can only continue to have SVB, become truly verbal and scientific, once we no longer aversively influence each other with the sound of our voice. Any behaviors which maintains the dominance hierarchy is unscientific and behavior which is scientific is heterarchical.

November 6, 2015

November 6, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

                                                                                                                                          

Dear Students,

This is a third response to “Effectiveness as Truth Criterion in Behavior Analysis” by Tourinho and Neno (2003). Before further exploring this paper, I want to emphasize something about the difference between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Once you know you can have SVB by yourself, you get a better understanding to what extent it is made possible or not so possible due to your own behavioral history. Each time habits prevent you from having SVB, you will achieve it by exploring these habits out loud. You will find out on our own, that your speaking and listening behavior can be synchronized without any effort. 

When your speaking happens at a higher rate than your listening or when your listening happens at a higher rate than your speaking, you will have NVB, by yourself. During the former, you experience that you as the speaker, have a negative effect on you as the listener. In the latter, however, you will find that it is hard to say anything out loud as you judge yourself already before you have said it. During the latter, your listening to yourself is self-critical and self-censuring to your speaking. Obviously, this thinking-habit, this negative private speech, was conditioned by your involvement in and your repeated exposure to NVB public speech. Similarly, the extent to which you will find yourself having SVB is also a consequence of your previous exposure to SVB. If you experience a lot of instances of SVB on your own, this means you have already been conditioned to have it, but if you will have a lot of NVB instances, this indicates that your previous environments must have conditioned you to have thought like that. 

Whether you have high rates of SVB or NVB on your own is not the point. What matters is that you become more realistic and accurate about the conditioning effects of your previous environments. Each time your assessment is correct, you overcome the negative influences from your previous environments and you will be able to acknowledge and validate those influences that were positive for you. Familiarizing yourself with SVB and NVB, by talking out loud on your own, inevitably and effortlessly results into an increase of SVB and a decrease of NVB. 

This happens as you realize that SVB is not just some technique, but a natural phenomenon, which, depending on the circumstances, either can happen or can’t happen. Since you have become more familiar with the circumstances in which it can happen, it will happen more often, as you will now know what these circumstances are. When you are again with others, you will be able to recreate these circumstances which made it possible for your to have SVB while you were on your own. The conditions that make SVB possible are the same regardless of whether you are on your own or with others. You don’t and can’t have SVB with others for the exact same reasons that you don’t and can’t have SVB with yourself. Stated differently, when you are alone, the speaker and the listener either engage in and maintain SVB together or they engage in and maintain NVB together. Similarly, when you talk with others, you will know based on your self-experimentation that the speaker and the listener either engage in SVB or in NVB. There is never simultaneously a speaker who is engaging in SVB and a listener who is engaging in NVB. 

There will never be simultaneously a speaker who engages in NVB and a listener who engages in SVB. They can go back and forth between the two, but higher rates of SVB will only happen if this going back on forth can happen more often. Because of your self-experimentation you will know that you, that is, the speaker who is the listener, don’t have that problem of going back and forth between SVB and NVB. When you are with others, you will find that their behavioral history is such that they can’t allow this shift. You don’t need to change them. You give up trying to change them as you know the speaker can’t change the listener; the speaker and the listener are always together involved in SVB or in NVB. 

By noticing when that happens, the informed person will create more opportunity to experience SVB and make it available. The person who doesn’t have the necessary behavioral history can’t make that happen. The person who knows SVB is responsible for it and those who create NVB are responsible for their NVB. By simply letting things be the way they are, the shift from NVB to SVB becomes increasingly possible. The facts are the facts. In NVB we don’t care about the facts, but in SVB we become behavioral scientists, who consider their own behavior as data. 

Let me now comment on Tourinho’s and Neno’s paper. These authors refer to other behaviorists and to Skinner to “illustrate the notion of knowledge as behavior (contingency-shaped or rule-governed), from which the supposition results that “to impart knowledge is to bring behavior of a given topography under control of given variables.”” The term rule-governed behavior is used when responses are controlled by a verbal description rather than the contingency itself. The latter would be contingency-shaped behavior. In SVB and in NVB our voice (a given topography) is under control of other people (contingency-shaped). The more we learn about the SVB/NVB distinction, however, the more we describe our environment (the contingency) verbally and the more SVB is achieved as rule-governed behavior. During SVB we sound different as our voice (our topography) is controlled by different variables then during NVB.