"Mental state" Summary

Wikipedia, Mental state

(1) In psychology, mental state is an indication of a person's mental health.

Relaxed in Flow (psychology), a Relaxed mental state of arousal, flow, over-learned self-control and relaxation.

(2) In the philosophy of mind, a mental state is the kind of state or process that is unique to thinking and feeling beings; these can be representational states (see propositional attitude) or qualitative states (see qualia).

Mental Representation

Mental Representation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
First published Thu Mar 30, 2000; substantive revision Mon Jul 21, 2008

The notion of a "mental representation" is, arguably, in the first instance a theoretical construct of cognitive science. As such, it is a basic concept of the Computational Theory of Mind, according to which cognitive states and processes are constituted by the occurrence, transformation and storage (in the mind/brain) of information-bearing structures (representations) of one kind or another.


A propositional attitude is a relational mental state connecting a person to a proposition.

Proposition

In logic and philosophy, the term proposition (from the word "proposal") refers to both

(a) the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or
(b) the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence.

The meaning of a proposition includes that it has the quality or property of being either true or false, and as such propositions are called truthbearers.

A declarative sentence or declaration, the most common type, commonly makes a statement: I am going home.

"Qualia" (pronounced /ˈkwɑːliə/ or pronounced /ˈkweɪliə/), singular "quale" (pronounced /ˈkwɑːlɛ/), from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to describe the subjective quality of conscious experience. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, or the redness of an evening sky.