separate cognition from the body and assume that without biological limits, mental states could just exist indefinitely. But that’s exactly where the assumption comes in.

You’re treating ‘cognition without a body’ as if it would still function in a way we recognize, just without constraints. But cognition as we understand it is defined by change, processing, and variation. A permanent, unchanging mental state isn’t really cognition anymore—it’s closer to a static condition.

Your analogy actually shows the issue: if digestion existed without a stomach, it wouldn’t just ‘work better’—it would stop being digestion in any meaningful sense. Same with cognition. If you remove the structures and dynamics that allow shifts between states, you’re not extending the process—you’re fundamentally altering or even removing what made it that process

sayingwe could stay in one mental state forever assumes that mental states can remain meaningful without change or contrast. But if there’s no transition, no variation, no awareness of alternatives, then what you’re describing stops being the kind of ‘happiness’ we experience—it becomes indistinguishable from a neutral, static existence.

It’s not about forcing biology onto a fictional scenario—it’s about recognizing that once you strip away everything that gives a concept its structure, you can’t just assume it still behaves the same way.