May 30, 2016

May 30, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Once you learn about the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/ Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction, you become part of the scientific community. The verbal community to which you belong gave you language, but didn’t and   couldn’t provide you with precise stimulus control. 

The increase of your SVB and the decrease, and, ultimately, the extinction of your NVB is only possible if you know what environmental variables can accomplish this. As long as you are not objective about it, you  continue to have problems with spoken communication. 

If you were as scientific about talking as you are about your car, you would have better relationships. Unless you turn the key to start your engine, unless your tank is full of gas, your car won’t drive. 

You know what sets the stage for driving your car. That is why you keep your car keys nearby and make sure you gas up regularly. However, the same is not true about the conversations you have with others and yourself. 

In what he referred to as his most important work, Verbal Behavior (1957), B.F. Skinner explains “The scientific community encourages the precise stimulus control under which an object or property of an object is identified or characterized in such a way that practical action will be most effective” (1957, p.419).

Once you explore the SVB/NVB distinction, it becomes  crystal clear that NVB besides being energy-consuming and effortful, is utterly impractical and ineffective. Yet NVB happens at a much higher rate than SVB, which is energizing, effortless, practical and effective. 

You tolerate this absurd state of affairs about how you  communicate as you don’t really know how to change it. Your transition and liberation from your pre-scientific verbal community and your graduation to the scientific verbal community will only be possible with your SVB.

May 29, 2015

May 29, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

I am sitting in my garden near the fire. I am happy and quiet. I have just stopped counting my blessings. I enjoy my aloneness as my wife is visiting her mother. I am peaceful and everything seems to have been done.  

I hear a pigeon and a car while the silence is descending. Tomorrow things will be different, but I will not forget this time in which I digest who I have been and see who I am going to be, taking my instructions from the flames. 

Two birds flew after each other and animated neighbors were talking with family members. Each has their domain. I feel complete and I have nothing to wish for. The birds flew by and the neighbors went inside to watch TV. 

The air-conditioners are humming and one bird sings one last song before the darkness sets in. As the wood is being consumed by the fire, the logs rearrange themselves and the smoke goes up in the air as there is no wind.

A mosquito tried to land on my skin, but its sound near my ear gave it away and made my hand move. A dog barks at the arrival of a car and from my back yard I hear what is happening in my street, in my town, in my country. 

Oh fire, I love and admire you for being without any effort. I like to be near you and like you. Those who don’t know this cannot be here with me. It is seconds before the clock stands still and then I will pull its weights again.

The light is just right for these words to make sense. In the glow of the fire’s final stages my shadowy friends left without saying good bye. I am blessed to be outside and slowly feel absorbed by and dissolved into the night. 

Far up in the sky is an airplane with a light that flickers in the dark. The trail of its straight line was a sign that no one heard or saw.  We will not meet as our distance was too big, our speed too high and our direction different. 

Who cares about the sound of the screaming cat? Who cares about the roof which rests on our house? Who cares about the plants which grow? Who cares about the dog that barks because there was nobody home?

May 28, 2016

May 28, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Once you have the embodied experience of the Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB)/Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) distinction it will be very clear to you that this concept is tremendously effective. This prediction is to be tested and verified by you. 

The SVB/NVB distinction highlights two contingencies and your participation in SVB or NVB is due to these two different contingencies. The description of these two contingencies cures you from the false notion that you are causing your own behavior. 

You didn’t teach yourself how to talk, others did that. You talk the way you do as you were reinforced to talk that way. This doesn’t mean you cannot talk in a different way; it means you will only be able to talk in a different way if others, who are your environment, reinforce your different way of talking. 

It is self-defeating (pun intended) to believe that you can choose your rate of SVB or NVB. It will be a great relief to finally move beyond your tiresome identification with a behavior-causing self. You will feel empowered rather than defeated to know that you know what you know, because you can talk about it.

To the extent that you can talk about the environment which maintains your speech, you will know more and you will discover and learn more. However, that process is made possible only by the contingency which sets the stage for SVB. 

No matter how much you may talk, as long as you engage in NVB, there will be incongruence between what you say and what you do, between your beliefs and your actions. SVB makes you aware that your belief and your actions are both behaviors. 

One behavior doesn’t cause another behavior, but stimuli set the stage for a response which is either reinforced or punished. Your beliefs and actions were conditioned by environments you were in, which gave private speech is false independent status.

May 27, 2016

May 27, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Did you know that we know what we know, because we talk about stuff? Our way of talking determines what we can know and agree on. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is the language of science and knowledge, but Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) makes us and keeps us biased, ignorant and superstitious. 

In SVB we talk with each other, but in NVB, we don’t really talk with each other. In SVB we agree with each other, but in NVB we don’t agree with each other, we can only pretend to agree. It has taken us so long to differentiate between SVB and NVB tells us a few environments reinforce the SVB which makes this distinction audible. 

Many scientists are trapped by making observations. Their bias for visual stimuli keeps preventing them from listening to how they sound while they speak. Science developed due to SVB and it has ALWAYS been hindered, prevented or even destroyed by NVB. 

Only those who suspended beliefs were able to find out how things really work, but those who kept forcing their views on reality have distorted, disturbed and harmed it. Only SVB makes us experience, understand and predict the natural patterns of spoken communication, which determine our relationships and the structure of our society. 

Unlike NVB, SVB is not a verbal game of words; it is the foundation upon which we can live a safe, happy, creative and productive life. With the SVB/NVB distinction we can discriminate between two patterns of vocal verbal behavior. Many of our problems will dissolve once we acquire this pattern recognition ability. 

The distinction between SVB and NVB not only makes us aware of patterns which already existed, but which were not recognized, it will also allow us to generate new patterns, which will benefit us in multiple ways. In other words, our relationships will change and as this occurs we will be able to create a much better world.

May 26, 2016

May 26, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Spoken communication occurs in patterns. If you look for these patterns you will not find them, but if you listen for them, a new understanding will be possible. Different languages are such different patterns. 

The best way to learn a new language is to be immersed in it. When you are surrounded by the people who speak it, you are conditioned by the contingency that causes it. You are more likely to understand this new language if you speak it. As long as you don’t speak it, you don’t learn it. 

Hearing someone else speak it is not the same as speaking it yourself and listening to yourself while you speak. It helps to hear someone else speak it, but, ultimately, you will only learn it when you speak it. Moreover, when you speak it, others will reinforce it and that reinforcement makes learning possible. 

You will need to sound right (speak French) in order to be able to listen, that is, in order to be reinforced by others. Your listening, like your speaking, can only be as good as you were reinforced by others. 

You already know how to speak and listen in the pattern that you are familiar with and grew up with, but other languages remain unfamiliar as long as you make it seem as if your pattern is the only pattern. Every human being grows up in an environment which conditions him or her to speak in a particular way. 

In different environments we speak different languages. If we can’t do that, we are not listened to or understood. When we cannot make ourselves understood, we cannot speak, but we also cannot listen. When we cannot talk, we cannot listen. 

We must talk to be able to listen. Unless we talk, there is nothing to listen to. There is a different way of talking in the language that we already know. We are reinforced in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) only by those who know how to listen to themselves while they speak. In SVB we will all listen to ourselves while we speak.