Whispers of Alexandria: Ethos, Pathos, Logos, Kronos - and the run on medical data
- technochroma
- Jan 26
- 4 min read
I'm just reclaiming some writing from my time of healing, which would otherwise be lost in my social feeds.
The fractal is "Whispers of Alexandria", originally "Song of a Moonsea Seraph", or maybe even "Alexandria-By-The-Sea", so I was a bit torn on the title. Perhaps I'll do some experimenting later. It comes from some distant...impression? Memory? - that some of the best parts of Greece are underwater at this point.
I forget if Alexandria is actually by the sea, but the writing below is a reference to keeping some of the wisdom lost in a veritable Library of Alexandria issue. With the advent of war ever-nearer, I am sure the persistent data lockouts of the past year are all the more prevalent. So. Preserving the wisdom of the past becomes of the utmost importance - however any of us can. And this widening chasm between East and West will undoubtedly sever lifelines of communication and research libraries in all industries, all across the world. What I observed below was only for medical, so I can only begin to imagine.
What follows is also some writing, some musing, and some theories from my own experiences at the time. These are of course paired with the healthcare data & methods of care to improve quality of life which I had gleaned from my time working as a supervisor for data in medical, hardware, telephony, and secure systems. So the following is thus written as a sort of positive critique on systemic opportunities in healthcare which I observed within the last year (2025).
Ethos - Pathos - Logos - Kronos
These are four basic suggested tenets to heal medicine. It's a good way to address the restoration of systems management in general. Systems are falling apart thanks to a "run on data", such as America pulling research and data away from Europe. Without data to draw conclusions from, core values and ethics and standards have no substance to support healthcare practices, hospitals. Without data to review or help make decisions, the threat of malpractice is constant and sometimes unavoidable.
Having core tenets in place which address functioning in a data-desert can at least allow patients a proper voice in allowing doctors to help determine the best treatment with the info at hand.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1iikuyk/useu_data_services_could_be_made_illegal_under_a/
All four tenets - ethos, pathos, logos, kronos - all support each other.
I thought of these four In the healthcare context, as it can mean the following:
One sole factor should not outweigh the others in treatment or determinations. All four support each other. Not all may be equally prioritized, in truth nothing is perfectly equal. But don't ignore all the rest in favor of one determining factor.
A decision is the result of a system of checks and balances.
Time heals all. Patience is a virtue
Logic should not outweigh ethics or a proper sense of empathy for the suffering of others.
Ethics can include "do no harm" and my favorite level-up to that lately, "don't just treat - treat the patient, and treat the patient well or at least effectively"
________
Ethos - ethics. such as: the right thing to do, or at least, do no harm
Pathos - commitment, passion, drive. which is really: sense of urgency, the reason which drives us.
Logos - logic. Structured logical processes such as deduction, induction. These serve as reasonable checks against inflation of ego or the "ivory tower" complex which plagues many medical practices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_tower
Kronos - time. Time can really heal all. But there are exceptions especially in emergent situations. This is where triage comes handy. Empathy can be used to translate the patient's pathos of expressed pain to determine urgency of emergent care. Not all patient outbursts are aggression. Patience and understanding help us translate problems to solutions. Time heals all. If you feel patients are getting aggressive at you, that just means their needs aren't met, and they feel they are running out of literal time in the session to be heard. People get urgent and jumpy when pressed for time.
Extensions of these are:
Intuos - intuition. It's been a holistic data practice of mine to memorize not just the data but the patterns. One can intuit patterns with relative accuracy and acceptable variance. It's what AI are programmed to do essentially. Humans should not deny themselves this superpower amongst the mental faculties gifted to us. If you have a feeling, follow it, but make sure you are not clouded by ego.
Mythos - history and formative collective-to-personal experiences which underpin someone's core identity and help shape their life path. Many psychologists see this as a collective sort of oversoul or the cultural stories or lore we grew up with. These even in later days can shape things like how many options we feel we have in any kind of decision, because if we have typecasts from our mythos who make our ethos or logic a certain way, then we cannot ignore mythos in a patient's history or doctor's background.
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