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Single Idea 6938

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution ]

Full Idea

It is probably of more advantage to an animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought.

Gist of Idea

Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones

Source

Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8)

Book Ref

Peirce,Charles Sanders: 'Philosophical Writings of Peirce', ed/tr. Buchler,Justus [Dover 1940], p.8

A Reaction

Note that this is a pragmatist saying that a set of beliefs might work fine but be untrue. So Peirce does not have the highly relativistic notion of truth of some later pragmatists. Good for him. Note the early date to be thinking about Darwin.

The 23 ideas with the same theme [theory that life results from natural selection]:

5090 Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed [Empedocles, by Aristotle]
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
23301 There is a gradual proceeding from the inanimate to animals, with no clear borderlines [Aristotle]
15961 I don't see how mere moving matter can lead to the bodies of men and animals, and especially their seeds [Boyle]
12567 It is inconceivable that unthinking matter could produce intelligence [Locke]
19414 Men are related to animals, which are related to plants, then to fossils, and then to the apparently inert [Leibniz]
7646 There is no abrupt transition from man to animal; only language has opened a gap [La Mettrie]
19776 Small uninterrupted causes can have big effects [Rousseau]
14801 Darwinian evolution is chance, with the destruction of bad results [Peirce]
6938 Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones [Peirce]
20241 Enquirers think finding our origin is salvation, but it turns out to be dull [Nietzsche]
7179 Survival might undermine an individual's value, or prevent its evolution [Nietzsche]
7178 The utility of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary! [Nietzsche]
7180 Darwin overestimates the influence of 'external circumstances' [Nietzsche]
4535 A 'species' is a stable phase of evolution, implying the false notion that evolution has a goal [Nietzsche]
5314 Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and fast, biological evolution is Darwinian and slow [Wilson,EO]
5315 Over 99 percent of human evolution has been in the hunter-gatherer phase [Wilson,EO]
3502 Mind involves fighting, fleeing, feeding and fornicating [Searle]
3804 Darwin's idea was the best idea ever [Dennett]
7515 All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker]
7514 Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker]
23993 Our capabilities did not all evolve during the hunter gathering period [Goldie]
7462 DNA mutation suggests humans and chimpanzees diverged 6.6 million years ago [Watson]