 The second is that it fits nicely with an idea that loomed large in the simulationist literature: the idea that simulated mental states are “pretend” (“as if”, “quasi-”) states—imperfect copies of, surrogates for, the “genuine” states normally produced by a certain cognitive mechanism, obtained by taking this cognitive mechanism “off-line”. Consider the following case. Frank is in front of Central Café (and believes that he is there). He desires to drink a beer and believes that he can buy one at Central Café. When he feeds these mental states into his decision-making mechanism, the mechanism implements a decision-making process, which outputs the decision to enter the café. In this case, Frank’s decision-making mechanism was “on-line”—i.e., he used it; he employed it for its primary function. My situation is different. I don’t believe I am in front of Central Café, nor do I desire to drink a beer right now. Still, I can imagine believing and desiring so. When I feed these imagined states into my decision-making mechanism, I am not employing it for its primary function. Rather, I am taking it off-line (I am reusing it). As a result, the cognitive process implemented by my mechanism will output a merely imagined decision to enter the café. Now, it seems fair to say that my imagined decision resembles Frank’s decision (more on this in  section 3).  If you combine this with how these two mental states have been generated, the result is that my imagined decision is a mental simulation of Frank’s decision, and thus it is a simulated mental state. It is also clear why Frank’s decision is genuine, while my simulated mental state is just a pretend decision: all else being equal, Frank’s decision to enter Central Café will cause him to enter the café; on the contrary, no such behaviour will result from my simulated decision. I have not really decided so. Mine was just a quasi-decision—an imperfect copy of, a surrogate for, Frank’s genuine decision.