April 27, 2016

April 27, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006)   Ribes-Iñesta explains Wittgenstein’s three “language games.” He refers to them as “the dimensions of language, language as a medium, as an instrument, and as a form of life.” Ribes-Iñesta admits that “they are difficult to separate from each other both in Wittgenstein’s conception as well as in the phenomenon of language as a social daily practice.” This is especially true when we are writing about spoken communication. Our tendency to separate and analyze things is unfortunately more a part of our written language than of our spoken language. We have not been very successful in giving an analytic account of spoken communication while we speak.

While we speak unknowingly many negative emotions keep being triggered which prevented us from being rational about our speech. In other words, we keep having Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) as we don’t know how to achieve and maintain Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), rational spoken communication which is made possible by the absence of negative emotions. This issue has never been properly addressed. We are not truly rational as long as our negative emotions are elicited by the way in which we speak. Our thinking only functions properly with the continuation of positive emotions.

Coincidentally, there are also three reasons why we don’t attain SVB. Each of these reasons changes the way in which we sound. 1) The sound of our voice changes when we are overly fixated on the verbal.  When what we say is more important than how we say it, we disconnect from our body, the instrument of sound. Our disembodied way of talking, NVB, just sounds horrible. NVB speakers don’t pay attention to what they experience within their own skin while they speak. The speaker-as-own-listener is only stimulated during SVB, but not during NVB. 2) Our voice also voice changes from sounding good to sounding terrible when the environment changes. Instead of feeling safe we suddenly feel threatened. We are outward oriented, when we have to be on guard, defend ourselves or flee. We produce a very different kind of voice when we enjoy ourselves and each other or when we fight with each other, try to dominate each other or try to escape from each other. We either sound scary or we sound scared, but in both cases we don’t sound at ease. 3) The third reason our voice changes is because we engage in some kind of struggle. Any kind of struggle makes us sound unpleasant. When in NVB we struggle to get each other’s attention we sound awful. We sound nasty when we argue about who is right. We sound dreadful when our private speech is at odds with and disconnected from our public speech.  We sound repulsive each time we don’t listen to ourselves while we speak. We sound hideous when our speaking and our listening behaviors are not occurring at the same rate.

Three reasons change our voice: (1) fixation on the verbal, (2) outward orientation, and (3) struggle for attention, must be explored and verified while we speak. The NVB speaker, who separates him or herself from the listener, sounds unspeakable to the listener as the listener is not allowed to speak. The NVB speaker, whose voice is experienced by the listener as an aversive stimulus, always elicits the listener’s counter-control, which also sounds argumentative. The struggle for dominance sounds repulsive to those who know SVB. We produce nervous sounds and we engage in NVB when we worry about whether people perceive us how we want to be perceived. In our struggle for approval, acceptance, respect and validation, we just sound ghastly, nasty and grisly. Every time we demand each other’s attention, we sound upset, grim and angry. The more we disconnect from each other, the more we disconnect from ourselves, the more horrifying we sound.

Wittgenstein’s language games don’t refer to the three reasons why our voice changes.  Like me, Wittgenstein was intensely frustrated by how people talked with him. His writing signifies his frustration with the results of his spoken communication. My writing, on the other hand, is a function of the many positive results which I have experienced due to my discovery of SVB. I write about, am certain of and have faith in the joy, beauty and intelligence of genuine human interaction. When Wittgenstein writes “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false? It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinion but in form of life (1953, p. 241)”, he refers to both SVB as well as NVB. In SVB there is more than the agreement in the language we use. In SVB there is nonverbal agreement which makes verbal agreement possible, but in NVB there is no nonverbal agreement and therefore verbal agreement is superficial and short-lived.  Wittgenstein and Ribes-Iñesta are fixated on the verbal, which gives rise to NVB.  Ribes-Iñesta makes no reference to how he sounds.  “Language as a medium becomes apparent in the form of the words (spoken and written) through which conventional practice operates.” Wittgenstein too ignores his voice. “To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to master a technique” (1953). SVB is not a technique! We don’t say that walking or eating or sitting is a technique. SVB is a skill which will only be learned if someone is teaching it to us. The only person who can teach SVB to others is someone who is not interested in technique.

Wittgenstein and Ribes-Iñesta agree that “To consider language as an instrument entails thinking about its functions,” but don’t say a word about the function of the sound of their voice while they speak. I disagree with Ribes-Iñesta, who writes “Meanings are the outcome of the use of words in social contexts.” I would say meanings are the outcome of how we sound when we use words in social contexts. Certainly, “meanings are” more than the “words being used.” During SVB and NVB we may use the same words, but they have different meanings. Most of what is said is not found in our words, but in how we say it, in how we sound. Wittgenstein links meaning of language with private speech, with how he talks with himself. “When I think in language, there aren’t “meanings” going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions; the language is itself the vehicle of thought (1953, p. 329).” Such covert self-talk is clearly a function of SVB public speech. Here Wittgenstein unknowingly explains that his private speech is function of public speech. He must have previously engaged in SVB. The nuance of such thought couldn’t ever arise from NVB, which is based on the speaker’s mistaken conviction that he or she is causing his or her own behavior.

Wittgenstein writes “Language is an instrument. Its concepts are instruments. Now perhaps one thinks that it can make no great difference which concepts we employ. As, after all, it is possible to do physics in feet and inches as well as in meters and centimeters; the difference is merely one of convenience. But even this is not true if, for instance, calculations in some system of measurement demand more time and trouble than it is possible for us to give them (1953, p. 569).” SVB and NVB can and perhaps should be considered as different systems of measurement. SVB takes more time and requires more attention than NVB. NVB is mechanical and repetitive as it refers to the establishment and maintenance of hierarchical differences, whereas SVB involves heterarchical, creative and spontaneous relationships. Only SVB we can talk and make sense of functional relationships as in NVB we are simply too stressed, anxious, angry, frustrated and unconscious to pay close attention to the particular circumstances in which we employ certain concepts. Ribes-Iñesta states “Communication is a phenomenon taking place as a special function of language and not as an equivalent to language.” He could have gone into other variables than language of which communication is function, but since he only writes about language, he overlooks how what we say is function of how we sound. We sound different when we are in a rush or have time. While Wittgenstein asserts “words have meaning only in the stream of life (1980, p. 687),” he is oblivious of the SVB/NVB distinction.

“The stream of life” can be explained as positive or negative emotions. The words we speak which are accompanied by the former or the latter are part of SVB or NVB. These two response classes can be found in every language. Wittgenstein is right, but he doesn’t go deep enough by stating that “what we do in our language game always rests on a tacit presupposition. (1953, IV, p. 170).” The SVB speaker talks with the listener, who can also become the speaker, but the NVB speaker talks at the listener, who is only allowed to become a speaker when the first speaker gives him or her permission to speak.  Even if the listener is allowed to speak in NVB, he or she is expected to speak in such a way that the status quo will be reinforced. In SVB, on the other hand, talking creates an entirely new order, which couldn’t be established as long as NVB prevailed. SVB can only occur in an environment which makes us feel at ease and aware, while NVB always involves aversive environments in which the communicators are dull, repetitive and stagnant. 

I wonder what made Wittgenstein decide to use the term “language games?” The way in which adults deal with language has nothing to do with a game. Are we playing games when we dominate, exploit, manipulate, alienate and coerce each other? In SVB we are not playing any games anymore. None of the assumptions listed by Ribes-Iñesta refer to the sound of the speaker’s voice. Since Wittgenstein didn’t mention it, Ribes-Iñesta doesn’t mention it either. If Wittgenstein would have mentioned it Ribes-Iñesta would probably have written about it too. However, Ribes-Iñesta only tries to make clear what Wittgenstein had already written, “Psychology has not recognized that language, although ever-present in human behavior and its context, does not constitute a psychological phenomenon.” Wittgenstein is generally not very well-understood as he was advocating and early behavioral account of language. Even among today’s behaviorists there is contention about Verbal Behavior (1957), which Skinner considered to be his most important book. Verbal behavior without the SVB/NVB distinction has remained incomplete and inaccessible. The only way in which behaviorists are going to know about this distinction is when they are going to talk about it with each other.

Behaviorists, like Ribes-Iñesta, who are obviously more into talking than into writing, have written many papers which point into the direction of more talking. Increased talking has not occurred and could not occur as long as NVB wasn’t stopped. Increased talking will only occur when we know how to stimulate and maintain SVB. To recognize, as Skinner has also stated, that language is NOT a psychological phenomenon, more SVB talking is needed.

April 26, 2016

April 26, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Today(04/26/2016) I was listening to Rush Limbaugh. Rush has a hearing aid and can’t hear anything without it. He was talking about yesterday’s presentations by the republican candidates. Trump and Kasich had done their presentation and then it was Cruz’s turn. While he was talking, suddenly TV viewers didn’t hear Cruz through the microphone in front of him, but through a microphone that was placed at the dinner tables. One could hear the clashing of knives and forks on plates and one could hear people eating, but one could only vaguely hear Cruz. Of course, this was not just some accident, but a carefully orchestrated attempt to disturb Cruz’s presentation. According to Rush, the sound of people eating, was meant to make viewers and listeners believe that Cruz’s message was not interesting. As Rush has a hearing aid, the change of the noisy sounds stood out for him and other people only picked up on it after he had talked about it. They had not consciously registered that the sound had changed, but they may have been unconsciously influenced by it. Also the fact that people were busy eating during Cruz’s presentation, but not during Trump’s or Kasich’s presentation, indicates that this dinner was planned to change the way in which Cruz’s speech was perceived. I find all of this very amusing since this occasion deals with an attempt, by those who are against Cruz, to change the way in we perceive his sound. Cruz’s sound was literally drowned out by the dinner table sounds, the clashing of knives and forks. I think that Rush Limbaugh was correct in assuming that this deliberate disturbance of Cruz’s sound was meant to change the way in which people perceived his message. What is striking is that it takes someone with a severe hearing problem, like Rush, to pick up on this change of sound. Rush described the event as if, all of a sudden, he was only hearing loud noise. The distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) also deals with the difference between how we sound while we speak. This election event demonstrates the problems which are involved when there are competing sounds.  

NVB is essentially the kind of interaction in which speakers compete with each other’s sound. I am reminded of another example I saw on TV a while ago. In this program Van Jones was having a heated debate with Jeffrey Lord over whether or not Trump divides the nation when it comes to matters of race. Regardless of who is right or wrong in this argument, it was clear that Jones raised his voice and was repeatedly ripping into Lord. Although Jones was obviously upset and Lord acted as if he was cool, the two men didn’t give an inch to each other and were both involved in NVB. Lord was standing his ground and gave it right back to Jones, who kept attacking and accusing him. The point of this example is to illustrate that it is really actually about the competition of our sounds and not, as is so often believed, about the argument. 

The importance of our sound becomes all the more clear when we see and hear how primates interact with each other. The less dominant one produces a louder, high pitched sound than the dominant one. Such an annoying sound is difficult to habituate to and is also produced by a baby, who is trying to attract the attention of the mother. Demanding each other’s attention with our sound characterizes childish NVB. In SVB there is no need to attract each other’s attention. In SVB, we don’t demand each other’s attention as we are already paying attention to each other. For grownup humans, who, unlike animals, have language, only SVB is a mature way of communicating, but NVB is an immature way of communicating. As long as we continue to demand each other’s attention with our sound, we cannot really focus on what we are saying. If we distract each other from what we are saying by how we sound, we can’t make much sense. 

The pre-verbal, attention-seeking nature of our NVB is extremely detrimental to our relationships, which can only thrive to the extent that we attain SVB in which our way of speaking, that is, how we sound, makes what we say clear. In NVB how we sound distracts us from what we say. The response to NVB is always unknowingly to how we sound and not to what we say. This is the truth, which is indisputable. By indisputable, I simply mean unarguable; in other words, when we have SVB, we have stopped arguing.  We sound totally different when we argue and when we don’t argue. Everyone who has become familiar with the SVB/NVB distinction agrees that we sound much better when we don’t argue. Those who don’t know about this distinction don’t care about how they sound. 

I have another example of NVB. The other day I was listening to National Public Radio. A soft-spoken reporter interviewed a female protester, who had been screaming outside the hotel at which Trump was speaking in New York. The reporter wondered what she was trying to achieve. He didn’t think screaming was going to change anyone one’s mind. The protester answered that she wanted Trump to get a loud and clear message that he is not appreciated. The reporter mentioned the increase of intense protests and the numerous disturbances that had been created by other protesters. He then asked if the protester was against violence. Although she had been screaming at the top of her lungs, she still insisted that sheswas against violence. Presumably, she is not violent because she is against Trump’s hate speech. The point here is to illustrate how ignorant we are about our involvement in NVB. Once we have a better understanding of the distinction between SVB and NVB, we will be able to engage in SVB, an entirely new way of interacting. We simply don’t want to believe that we are continuously involved in NVB. We haven’t had any ongoing SVB, but once are having ongoing SVB, we will acknowledge this crucially important fact.

The protester, who raised her voice, believes she communicates a peaceful message which is against Trump’s hateful message, but she engages in NVB. Every time we engage in an argument or a debate, we engage in NVB. In SVB there is no argument, there is no debate as there is no struggle for attention. This is another thing which is hard to believe. We are conditioned by NVB, but once we have SVB, we agree that SVB occurs as there is no aversive stimulation and no struggle. Only in SVB will we talk in such a way that our problems can be addressed and solved and that the speaker and the listener agree on the solution.

SVB is unbelievable in that it is not a matter of belief. We first experience and then we understand the solutions which are offered by SVB. Such experience was always missing in NVB and the solutions offered by NVB never worked. We speak of a compromise, but this meant that our negative feelings continued. In SVB we don’t need to compromise as we agree on and accept and respect our differences. In SVB our negative feelings have ended and our positive emotions are expressed and maintained. This is possible and we are all capable of it.

April 25, 2016

April 25, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006)   Ribes-Iñesta explains that “the [socially meaningful] practices themselves lend their meaning to grammar” [words added by me]. Although many of us have not been instructed to enjoy and express the subtle nuances in meaning which are created by how we sound, it is never too late to learn this. In every language there is Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), the two response classes which naturally occur when we are feeling safe or threatened. To dismiss one or the other is to engage in meaningless conversation. Pretending or trying to feel safe doesn’t make us feel safe, and, acting forceful and defensive prevents us from being happy and relaxed.

In SVB the speaker positively affects the listener, but in NVB the listener is negatively affected by the speaker. Stated differently, in SVB the speaker and the listener co-regulate each other, but in NVB the speaker and the listener dis-regulate each other. What is considered “socially meaningful” is different from culture to culture. The words of a president, written by speech writers, may sound sincere, but they can’t create SVB. Once we realize the great contrast between SVB with NVB we will change many well-accepted concepts.

Wittgenstein wrote “When language games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change (1969, p. 65).” Indeed, the “meaning of words change”, when we shift from SVB to NVB or from NVB to SVB. We haven’t taken note of this because of our “language games.” One of our games is the assumption that spoken and written words are instances of the same convention. Ribes-Iñesta writes “According to what has been said, a basic assumption is proposed: language, as it is spoken and written in daily life, works as an instrument or tool” (italics added by me). It is easy to miss this, but he didn’t say anything! He has written something, but he writes about it as if he has said something. This happens all the time. It is a big problem, a language game, which remains completely out of sight as it is out of our hearing range.

April 24, 2016

April 24, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006)  Ribes-Iñesta writes “The term “language” is the only one that “refers” to itself, and it is a term included in and used in language. This may explain the particular elusiveness of the term and its extended meanings.” I disagree with him. He doesn’t explain why “the term “language” and its extended meanings” continues to be elusive. The reason that “language” has remained elusive is because we don’t realize the extent to which our written words take our attention away from our spoken words. Developmentally, our written words are a function of our spoken words. Our attempts to explain our spoken words with our written words would be more successful, if we first attempted to explain our spoken words with our spoken words. As this would have required a different way of talking, we choose to write about talking more than to talk about talking, because were unsuccessful in changing our way of talking.

Our writings have taken us further and further away from our talking and our technology has increased rather than decreased this process. Another way of describing this process is that our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), our negative way of talking, couldn’t address what can only be addressed by our Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), our positive way of talking. There is nothing elusive about SVB, either we have it or we don’t. Once we have it, we are surprised that there is nothing to explain. Since we can directly experience what SVB is, there is no need to first understand or explain it.

Once we have SVB, we can understand and explain it without a problem. As we haven’t had SVB often enough we lose touch with our experience of it and are unable to accurately describe it. As a consequence, we keep having NVB without even realizing it. We often think that we have SVB when in fact we are having NVB. Moreover, our history with SVB is so limited that we even think that it is impossible to have ongoing SVB, conversation in which our positive emotions are reinforced and can continue. Stated differently, the multiple meanings of the term “language” is NOT the problem. Our way of talking is the problem and we can no longer cover this up with our writings.

In SVB we are able to talk about our talking. We experience an interaction in which our understanding continues to increase as we explore our interaction while we speak. As previously stated, both Wittgenstein and Skinner were on the path they were on because of their high rates of SVB. “Wittgenstein (1953) conceived language games as conventions forming part of social practices and relations: “Here the term ‘language game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life (p. 23)” (Italics were not by me, but by Wittgenstein). He emphasizes the word speaking to remind himself as well as the reader that what he has written is really about spoken communication. Although Wittgenstein wrote about a very different kind of speaking than most other people, he didn’t and couldn't specify that he was writing about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB).

Considering Wittgenstein’s reclusive life-style, it seems quite evident that most of his writing was his attempt to bring out his private speech into his public speech. Thus, it was Wittgenstein’s isolation which gave rise to his writing. “We’re used to a particular classification of things. With language, or languages, it has become second nature to us (1980, p. 678).”  Like many other thinkers, he seemed to have stumbled on SVB by ‘talking to himself’ through his writing. However, it is very clear from his writings that he didn’t find much SVB in his spoken conversations. Wittgenstein often complains that people don’t understand him. However, understanding was never really the problem. His analysis was in fact about SVB, but the blunt manner in which most people talk is NVB. Ribes-Iñesta writes “When people speak, their speech is not the overt manifestation of an abstract grammar that rules and regulates what can be said or not, or how to say things” (italics added by me). What a person says doesn’t depend on what has been written, but it definitely depends on who we are talking with, as we are, after all, each other’s environment. In SVB and NVB we are saying very different things.

What can be said in SVB cannot be said in NVB. The development of our verbal behavior was made possible by our SVB, but was always impaired or made impossible by our NVB. Once we engage in SVB, we realize how often we were involved in NVB.  It is therefore always retrospectively that we recognize NVB as NVB. Ribes-Iñesta comes as close as he can to ‘saying’ the same thing, as he writes: “As I have remarked previously (Ribes, 1991), language as actual behavior has no grammar. Grammar, as an ideal structure of language, is an a posteriori abstraction of products and vestiges of the actual behavior of speaking and writing.” Note that he mentions speaking first. It is also interesting that the definition of a posteriori is relating to what can be known by observation, that is, through listing experience, rather than through an understanding of how certain things work. This relates to how SVB works: experience of sound is primary and our understanding of language is secondary. Wittgenstein writes “Grammar does not tell us how language must be constructed in order to fulfill its purpose, in order to have such-and-such an effect on human beings. It only describes and in no way explains the use of signs (1953, p. 496).” I totally agree, but like to add that how we sound tells “us how language must be constructed in order to fulfill its purpose, in order to have such-and-such an effect on human beings.”

SVB speakers have a different effect on listeners than NVB speakers. Also, the SVB speaker’s “use of signs” is different from the NVB speaker. Although SVB and NVB speakers may use the same words, these words have different meanings because of how they sound. Moreover, the SVB speaker uses different signs than the NVB speaker. SVB speakers vocalize safety signs with the sound of their voice, while NVB speakers vocalize signs which indicate threat.  Thus, the SVB/NVB distinction explains our use of vocal signs.

Ribes-Iñesta comes closer to the SVB/NVB distinction as Wittgenstein as he writes “In fact, grammar is an invention of the language games being played by individuals according to their practical conventions. Grammar is a description—sometimes inaccurate and delayed—of the uses of language as activities articulated within a form of life.” Since he doesn’t know about the SVB/NVB distinction, Ribes-Iñesta is unable to pinpoint that the use of NVB language only makes sense within the NVB community and that the use of SVB language is only articulated within the SVB community.

The SVB community is a different “form of life” than the NVB community. Wittgenstein might have been thinking out loud as he wrote “The rules of grammar may be called “arbitrary,” if that is to mean that the aim of the grammar is nothing but that of the language. If someone says “If our language had not this grammar, it could not express these facts,” it should be asked what “could” means here (1953, p. 497)”. However, it should be stated emphatically: it is due to how we sound that we cannot express certain facts. The question: what “could” means here (?) shows that Wittgenstein was  fixating on the verbal, which is a characteristic of NVB.  Ribes-Iñesta’s explanation, on the other hand, leads to the verbal community.

Ribes-Iñesta’s comes close to describing the SVB community when he states that “Grammar is not the condition that makes language effective or sound. On the contrary, grammar is the consequence of language as a meaningful social practice.” It is only the NVB community which believes that “grammar is the condition that makes language effective or sound.” Although NVB communities are ubiquitous and, like SVB communities, also claim to experience “meaningful social practice”, they have less room for such practices in the same way that SVB communities have less room for the coercive behavioral control that is practiced by the members of the NVB communities. The language that is allowed, that can be produced, that is, what is said in NVB verbal communities, is a consequence of how they say it, of how they sound.