Evolution doesn't need a skyhook

My response to Joseph's post here follows, when he asked where neural nets come from.

From a long process of evolution that does just fine without any skyhooks or involutionary givens including archetypes. I think you'll find more of the 'general' complexifiers, including Cilliars, have no need for such contraptions, that evolution is sufficient for the process, including genetics. The latter also evolved and is not an a priori given, and is still evolving.

See Complexity and Pomodernism, the section "learning through selection" starting at 100. E.g.:


"It should be clear that the ‘informational’ approach depends heavily on the notion of predetermined structure—on abilities the system is ‘born’ with, rather than on abilities the system could acquire. Furthermore, it assumes a hierarchical, rule-based, representational model of the brain. This is not merely an assumption about the inner workings of the nervous system, but in fact a more basic ontological assumption about the fabric of the universe. It enacts a nostalgia to reduce the world to logical relationships that can be tracked down. It should come as no surprise that this approach is intimately linked to the rule-based approach to the modelling of complex systems" (100).

At 103 he notes that certain brain structures are hard-wired, do not change by experience and are passed on by genetics. But these in turn evolved and 'selected' over long periods for survival, not some pre-determined given.