[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[Krimel]

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?