If you are one of those people, I am asking you what you think a mental state is. As far as I can tell, all discussions about consciousness and things mental are about processes. From a materialist point of view, consciousness and thinking in humans is not about what is in the brain, but is about what the brain is doing.anonymous66 wrote: ↑May 23rd, 2018, 8:03 am...but eliminative materialism is false (because if I know anything, I know I have mental states).
But when something is in a state, that means it is not changing. Literally, it is just standing, not doing anything. So for me, the only reasonable explanation of a mental “state” is that the same mental thing is happening over and over, not changing to a different mental thing happening. That’s why I get confused when people talk about mental states being identical to brain states. No one, I think, when they talk about brain states, is talking about the brain doing the same thing over and over. When I think of a brain state, I think of a frozen brain, more or less.
So does everyone have the understanding I have, or are you thinking about something else when you talk about mental states?
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