I suppose I’d have to say I don’t agree with your terms, this supposed ontological difference between alterational and existential change. (Further, I don’t see how you’ve demonstrated that lossless teleportation would neccesarily produce a “mere corpse” in the destination location.)

I fear we’re talking past one another. So it goes. Though I will say:

Relatedly: Lynn Margulis’ notion of endosymbiosis.

I rather think it points TO the heart of the nature of reportable consciousness — its instantiation of multiple patterns of coordinated neural firing and potentiation. There are explanatory advantages to assigning the phenomenon of consciousness to the category of phenomena which includes process-like complexes like…

Hell, *I* am not the “original” me. It’s a Ship of Theseus situation. Personhood is about the pattern, not the substrate.

“We still have no idea how the brain produces conscious awareness.”

I wouldn’t compare this to that. But rather, to an Olympics where athletes can medal in each of several diving events.

You could make the case; I don’t think, across all those various considerations that would come into play, that it would be persuasive. Which is, after all, the only point I meant to make when addressing that original commenter.

Ah, gotcha. I wasn’t objecting to the award; my initial comment was directed at the commenter who wanted to characterize King as one of the greatest 20th-century authors.

Hmm, sounds like we’re talking past one another. I don’t think one can continuously divide genres into smaller categories; there’s a practical limit soon reached. Though I would say that be assessing value WITHIN genre categories, as opposed to media categories, you end up with more objective assessments — which of…

Hmm, I’m not sure I follow. I’d offer that there are many genres in the category “novel”; how does that map on what you’re saying?

Cheers. I think I might be clearer if I said I think it’s a better idea to measure artistic achievement within categories of genre, and not just in the broader category of medium.

I was using “literary” as a modifier to “author”; I spell out the difference I mean elsewhere in the thread.

I wouldn’t wish to exclude modifiers, since I don’t relish the idea that we assign absolute acknowledgments of success to just a few people at the head of the pack. The “pack”, authors, is actually a few dozen packs. And there are highly accomplished folks at the top of their game in each of those packs. It’d be a…

Ironically, I would myself describe Dickens as a commercial writer, rather than a writer of literary fiction. (Again, no value judgement there.)

I wouldn’t make a value distinction between “literary” and non-literary writing, though some do. In my usage (and in much, though not all, critical academic usage) “literary” is used to distinguish prose in which the effects of language are pre-eminent, as against workmanlike prose that may nonetheless achieve good or…

I wasn’t questioning the award; I was addressing the blended judgement of the notion of “greatest author.”

I was addressing the difference between written storytelling and literary fiction. Whether one uses “literary” to refer to writing of a particularly enriched character, or to any art that is written (literary referring to “letters”), is just the sort of category confusion we can avoid if we as commentators decline to…

I think we’re on the same page.

“Author” is a tough category to talk about; it means different things to different people. King’s a great storyteller, for sure. Greatest literary artist? I suspect he’d agree that he wouldn’t be in the running.