They are not. These representations are obviously the most important for the purposes of the argument presented. With transient tacit representations, that distinction is not simply of practical insignificance, but theoretically unmotivated. Such a simple definition of stability ignores the fact that stability can manifest itself in a network in many more complex ways. A further complication is added if we grant that the sampling system might have the ability to 'quantize' states in the sampled system- i.e. to pull information to its nearest category, as a basin of attraction in a complex system 'equates' a wide number of states by the fact that they all lead to the same attractor.
Stability is as much a function of the sampler as of the sampled.
In a complex system, states which are not 'empirically' identical can be functionally identical. If such functional effects are as vital as we suggest, a pure vehicle theory of consciousness cannot succeed. Little, Brown Hebb, D. O.,1949, Organization Of Behavior.