What is a state? First things first.

What is a mental state? — Banno

A mind condition (mode of being).
Examples:
1) Consciousness (mass noun)
2) Altered States of Consciousness (noun)
3) Personality (Affect Correlation)
4) Mood (Temperament Correlation)
5) Emotion

Is it just experiencing Mental phenomena such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and sensations? — Banno

I find it useful to distinguish between mental conditions and mental functions in spite of the relations which obtain between them. Mental conditions are experienced, and mental functions are exercised, by an organism.

Types of mental function (mind action):
1) Semantic
2) Syntactic
3) Pragmatic

Inductive evidence in the form of physiological correlates, and criterial evidence in the form of observed behaviour, establish the existence of mental conditions and functions.

Corporeal and mental conditions and functions are mutually dependent, but incommensurable because:
1) Correlation does not imply causation.
2) Corporeal and mental data are accessed at different levels of abstraction.

When memory is created, aspects of the limbic system add emotional valance to the memory as it is written to the cerebral. Our memories are composed of thought/sensory content and feelings. We can trigged memory from either side of this duality. We can feel something and this will induce memory or we can recall memory and feel feelings.

The result is our memory is actually stored in layers, based on the feeling tags. It is analogous to looking a grid of blue and red dots through red sunglasses. The red dots will disappear and we will only see the blue dots; focus layer.

For example, if I feel hungry, images of food appear in my mind. The hunger feeling induces a layer of memory all with the same feeling tag. There are not many feelings tags; dozens, so these are reused for lots of different memories. The hunger feeling is attached to hundreds of data points. As this memory layer becomes active and in focus, states are connected to specific layers. This layering allows the ego to focus, while still having access to all the brain.

Beyond the memory layering, are brain firmware called the archetypes of the collective unconscious. These firmware help to organize each memory layer around the feeling and dynamics associated with that firmware. In the case of hunger, being hungry is not just recalling the food layer of memory, but also gathering, prepping and eating the food. Mental states are connected to this combined affect; given memory layer and the dynamics in the natural or modified firmware.

I think it's worth noting that your two examples are clearly medical. To go from them it would seem that a mental state is a belief about ourselves (in the Psychology today article) or to others (in the Royal Children's hospital article). I would say "concept", but I thought that might be more ambiguous than "belief"

So we go about thinking about mental states to either help ourselves feel better, or to assess whether others need help in feeling better.

Is the notion of a mental state coherent? Consistent? — Banno

I'm in two minds about it. How fucked is that?

Do we need this to be nailed down? I think it works as a vague finger pointing thing - she a bit upset, - his ceramic is cracked. So I'll pull myself together, buck my ideas up and declare it to apply only to other people. The kitchen is in a state at the moment and other people's minds are frequently in a state. Me, I have thoughts and feeling, both of which are wonderful, even when they are miserable.

Well, @unenlightened is winning so far.

talks of mental conditions and mental functions as if we knew what they are - but that's the question. @wellwisher talks of anatomy and images in minds. But after reading the first three replies I have no clearer idea of what a mental state is.

talks of making us feel better. That's close to the post hoc analysis of Belief. Mental states as rationalisations.

Are mental states propositional attitudes? Are propositional attitudes mental states?

Are mental states individuals?

That is, can they be parsed by constants in first-order language...

Many mental states are knowledge, in the mind. If someone says "the house is on fire" that is knowledge in your mind and will surely put you in a mental (and physical) state, regardless of whether the house is really on fire. In this respect we can define some mental states as knowledge in consciousness. Now all you have to do is define consciousness and you will know what a mental state is!

Is it close?

The medical value of talking about the state someone's mental life is in, including my own, seems to indicate that there must be something to the matter, no? If we can set a leg after it's broken, then surely our thinking about bones and how they work helped us to do so.

So maybe mental states are the post hoc rationalizations, ala belief. But then what is it that makes us feel better, if it is not our mental state?

Are mental states propositional attitudes? Are propositional attitudes mental states? — Banno

I would think that a mental state would not be a propositional attitude, but a propositional attitude is a mental state. But not all mental states are about propositions, or are even necessarily about anything, so mental states are wider than propositional attitudes.

Are mental states individuals?

That is, can they be parsed by constants in first-order language... — Banno

I'm afraid that question eludes me.

English only has one word for being: to be. Other languages such as Spanish have two, one of which is for telling about the state a thing is in as opposed to what it is.

Talk about states implies that a thing changes over time, although there is no reason a thing couldn't be in the same state for its entire existence. It's just that it could be in a different state and still be the same thing. (Nixon could have lost or have been in a state of defeat).

A mental state is a state of a person's mind, obviously. For more you'd have to explain what problem you're trying to solve.

Everything is a mental state.

I might qualify that by saying "everything we are aware of".

I think that to be aware of anything means it becomes part of a mental state.

If we take mental state to be a state of mind, then this becomes a rather simple and boring exercise...

All states of mind are 'determined' by the emotions at the time. This holds good from the rudimentary state of fear to the complex state of righteous indignation.

The interesting part of psychology is that it shows how one's mental state is directly affected by how one comes to terms with events. One can change how they feel(their mental state) by virtue of coming to different terms with the same events.

The discussion shows that to talk about "states" introduces the false step right at the start. It is an information processing term. One derived from a mechanical approach to dynamics. And so it imports all the metaphysical deficiencies of that particular language game (even if it might also have some advantages, such as a familiarity and simplicity).

Is the brain a machine, a computer - a finite state automaton?

If you are happy to think so, then sure, the OP probably seems to make sense to you. You can spend forever trying to make the organismic facts fit that weird thing of "a state".

Organismic facts? What analysis of an organism doesn't start with concept of homeostasis? That is the defining feature of an organism.

What analysis of an organism doesn't start with concept of homeostasis? — frank

Exactly. And homeostasis is about having the goal of regulating dynamical instabilities. So that is a very organic conception of nature - to be able to impose stability on instability in pursuit of a purpose.

You can have the defining desire of maintaining a "constant state" only because that state is in fact absent without the appropriate constraints being applied.

So now we are clearly starting to talk the language of organisms rather than machines. Some form of long-run intentionality has already come into play. And at the same time, some presumption about simple atomistic states of affairs - a state as a snapshot of all that exists during some "instant" - is making its exit.

Talk about "states" is Newtonian physics-speak. It presumes localised linearity and determinism. But good, you agree that talk about the mind is already talk about holism. We are really talking about states of intentionality. We are talking about sticking determinedly, in a fairly straight line, to goals that have a long-run stability. Or better yet, that produce that long-run stability.

That is why we can see the OP has already made the wrong move in accepting the Newtonian physics-speak notion of a state when it asks such questions as: "Is it just experiencing Mental phenomena such as beliefs, desires, intentions , and sensations?"

Now we have goal-directedness being spoken of as some kind of object floating in some kind of space. It is a mental thing, a lump with properties, that is to be found wandering about in some stray corner of this great place called "experience".

That is why I suggest that the OP ought first define what is meant here by state. If meaning is use, it is clear that the only definition the OP has in mind is some drab and lifeless notion derived from Newtonian mechanics and computer science.

You can spend forever trying to make the organismic facts fit that weird thing of "a state". — apokrisis

You can have the defining desire of maintaining a "constant state" only because that state is in fact absent without the appropriate constraints being applied. — apokrisis

Flux is a state. A living organism is always in this state. The world in general is even if it looks stable. Stability is the outcome of equal opposing forces.

The number 12 is not in a state of flux. It can't be. A mind can be in the state of contemplating the number 12. Yet 12 is apparently something beyond any individual mind. We believe that because a person can be wrong about what 12 is.

Our forebears would have said that 12 is a resident of the divine mind. Having dispensed with that idea, we're presently at a loss to explain what it is. I don't see any need to build some philosophical project around it.

Are mental states individuals?

That is, can they be parsed by constants in first-order language... — Banno

Sure, they are all the time. They were in those links you linked, for example, weren't they?

Are you asking whether 'mental states' correspond to some actual thing, a mental-state, in the person to whom they're ascribed? My guess is no, not really, tho, if youre familiar with the terms and the settings in which they crop up, you stand a good chance at making valid inferences about someone given the knowledge they've been ascribed mental state x.

'Mental states', at least of the sort described in your links, are part of a clinical language game involving

(1) finding the appropriate label for how someone presents in a mental health setting.

in order to

(2) interact with that person in such a way that they'll get better (or, more cynically, interact in such a way that one can reasonably ascribe a good 'state' to them in order to free up a bed in the clinic and have your interaction with them reflect well on your ability to treat patients vis-a-vis institutional expectations re: treatment duration)

To ask what actual thing it is 'mental state' refers to isto give the clinical game an undue dignity. 'mental states' are 'how-to-relate-to-this-person' tags determined by simple algorithmic checklists used to get the minimum [whatever] needed to categorize. They're instrumental through and through.

That the clinical game involving "mental states" is notoriously bad at the long-term amelioration of undesirable 'states' is also worth taking into account.

You can't actually tell by external signs that a person is experiencing an internal voice. They have to tell you that.

Flux is a state. — frank

Flux is a state of what though? And why have you suddenly changed the subject from homeostasis, or the intentional regulation of fluctuations, in pursuit of some stable - and in fact, "far from equilibrium" - equilibrium condition?

Stability is the outcome of equal opposing forces. — frank

Yep. Equilibrium is a state of all forces, or sources of fluctuation, arriving at some steady persisting balance. It is an outcome of a system being closed or bounded in a fashion that allows it to be so. And also some mind, some point of view, which no longer sweats the uncertain details.

The particles of an ideal gas at equilibrium are still in furious motion. But the state of the system can be completely determined by its macro-properties, such as temperature and pressure. At equilibrium, the kinetic details get averaged away. The actual state - some account of every individual particle - doesn't matter. The effective state is enough so far as the physical model is concerned.

So we do have our very mechanical notions of statistical states. But they in turn still rely on holistic and rather mental notions - like points of view that apply suitable cut-offs in terms of when the fine-grain details cease to matter.

The number 12 is not in a state of flux. It can't be. A mind can be in the state of contemplating the number 12. Yet 12 is apparently something beyond any individual mind. We believe that because a person can be wrong about what 12 is. — frank

We suddenly seem to be discussing Platonism. Are you completely abandoning homeostasis, which I agree is a great starting point for highlighting an organic approach in contrast to a mechanical one?

Sorry, I couldn't make much sense of your post. :sad:

Do you understand what homeostasis means then?

Don't you think that talk of flux, and talk of fluxes held in deliberate equilibrium balance, constitute two different "states of affairs". ;)

apologies to @Moliere & @unenlightenedGulity of responding to the op without reading the responses first. I see I'm making some points others have already made.

You can't actually tell by external signs that a person is experiencing an internal voice. They have to tell you that. — frank

Very true, but them telling you that is an external sign. (My hunch, having talked to many schizophrenics, is that the 'voices' they hear are not well understood in the way "hearing voices" would suggest, as though youre on your couch and an internal radio's playing some voice talking to you. But thats another topic altogether.)

Very true, but them telling you that is an external sign. — csalisbury

True. I guess you mean it's irrelavent if there really is any voice in the same way it's irrelevant whether we're presently in a simulation, or that the world is your mind and I'm just one of those crazy voices you hear.

Which I am, by the way.

Do you understand what homeostasis means then? — apokrisis

Yes.

Yes. — frank

So is a flux itself a state of balance according to you? Help me understand your understanding of homeostasis here.

True. I guess you mean it's irrelavent if there really is any voice in the same way it's irrelevant whether we're presently in a simulation, or that the world is your mind and I'm just one of those crazy voices you hear.

Which I am, by the way. — frank

Oh no, I think it's relevant. My response to Banno only meant that I think the terminology of mental states only makes sense in the setting in which its used (if even there). Theres very real stuff going on, but 'mental states' isnt going to get you close to it.

In terms of schizophrenic voices - I just mean the voices seem more like a drama being played out through (or within) a person than a hallucination appearing (resounding?) to a stable subject.

But im much more sure of the first paragraph than the second. (And I probably shouldn't have even brought up the stuff in the second. It's not all that relevant here.)

You originally seemed to suggest that an analysis of an organism does not lend itself to talk of states.

I disagreed. Homeostasis is in fact all about states. The state of blood pressure, the state of glucose and O2 supply, etc.

Since you mentioned "constant state", I think you were confusing "state" and "stasis."

Abstract objects might be considered the only things that can be truly static because they can be atemporal: like the number 12.