Mary said: Almost a week and no response. I would like you, the thesis writer, to tell me what the difference is between the Intellectual Level and the Social. Save me from being 'victimized' by Bo.
Krimel replied: The levels within the MoQ are a mess and in large measure that confusion does result from Pirsig's somewhat incoherent account of them. dmb says: Lucky me. I've returned from a family vacation to find that I get to play the hero who rescues the damsel in distress. And it looks like Mary could use some help too. [snip] C'mon, Krimel. Untie yourself and get up off of the railroad tracks. Your complaint is predicated on some kind of intellectual laziness. It amounts to a complaint that Pirsig didn't take the time to explain things that you should already know - or at least be able and willing to find out. That goes for you too, Mary. Pirsig did not invent this distinction. There are lots of different opinions about the relations between mythos and logos but if you look around I think you'll see how the two sides differ, how they conflict and where to draw the line between them. [Krimel] I am sorry if I left the impression that the incoherence was confined to just the intellectual level. All of them are shot through with it. But for present purposes the Mythos is just discarded Logos. Any explanation expressed in symbolic fashion is an intellectual pattern. Claiming that God created the universe in seven days for example is an intellectual pattern. At one time it was Logos. The fact that it gets replace by "better" ideas that assume the mantle of Logos does not mean that the pattern is any less an intellectual pattern. Both Mythos and Logos are part of the collection of intellectual patterns. You are confusing the function of intellectual patterns on the one hand and the quality of the patterns on the other. If levels are sets of patterns, then the level has to include all of the patterns. Bad ideas are just as much ideas as good ones. The Ptolmeic system of cosmology is no longer taken seriously but it is still an intellectual pattern. Intellectual patterns can serve social functions; like explaining why there is something instead of nothing; and social patterns can serve intellectual ones; raising your hand before asking a question or keeping silent in a library. Just a question for Mary: What's it like being rescued by one the Knights Who Say, Ni? Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
