Mental States

Paper Summary:

This paper uses a hypothetical situation to consider the meaning of mental states and how to decide if someone experiences mental states, noting how some of the medical staff in this case offer several reasons to think that a friend really does not have mental states, while considering what this means and how we might judge a mechanical brain rather than an organic brain.

From the Paper:

"This investigation into the meaning of "mind" and of mental states is based on the following premise. A close friend, someone with whom you have had many conversations on a wide variety of topics so that you have a sense of her mind and how it works, is in a car accident. She is taken to the hospital, where, in the course of routine diagnostics, workers discover that she does not have a brain in the way that you or I do. Instead, in her skull is an extremely complex non-organic digital computer, capable of receiving optical/auditory/and other information from the environment, and that is capable of causing the movement of her body."

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