> So biology becomes incredibly fine tuned for one goal: survival
Again, this is a category error. It works well as a metaphor, but evolution has no goal. Evolution is a description of a simple fact of the universe: things that are good at making copies of themselves become more prevalent. Hence things that become better at making copies of themselves prevail more than ones that don't.
Evolution has a very clear effective goal. Which it optimizes for, and meta-optimizes for.
The fact that this is a tautological drive, makes this effective goal even stronger than if it was by design. It doesn't drift. You can't change it. Even if you direct adaptations (i.e. replace natural selection with artificial selection), it still operates unswervingly. Only stopping if there is an extinction event, by happenstance or design.
Not only is survival relentlessly selected for directly, but anything that improves adaptability, repeatedly enabling more efficient downstream survival changes, is also selected for. I.e. meta-means to achieve this effective goal compound at multiple levels.
The highest meta-level, of course, being brains that know they want to survive. But that isn't some goal brains made up. It is an effective goal brains were invented for, and pre-imprinted with, as a means of better achieving it.
Anything goal-like in a living system can be explained at a low enough level by simple physics with "no goal". But if "goal" has any emergent meaning, which is to say, any meaning at all, evolution has a goal.
A tautologically emergent goal.
It isn't an overstatement to say that all other goals are either an expression of, or side effect of, that goal. I.e. curiosity, the need to avoid pain (even though statistically that sometimes motivates suicide), play (social and artifact behavioral exploration), and other seemingly flexible idiosyncratic goal generators only exist because of their statistical survival benefits.
So, THE tautologically emergent origin of, and unwavering statistical master over, all other goals.
Look, like Humpty Dumpty you can mean whatever you want with the word, but the unless you're talking about football or something the dictionary meaning is: "The object of one's ambition; a desired end or result."
You can't have the goal without the personality trying to achieve it.
This notion that evolution has an opinion is exactly why there are a lot of companion misconceptions about it - not least of which is the notion that humans are somehow at the top of the landscape it has produced.
Living things are relentless survival outcome machines.
Actively and adaptively. With every part and behavior continuously tuned, within and across generations, to support that one outcome. Carried out by inventive means and intricate strategies. With hierarchies of structure, function and interaction. And statistically successful over all kinds of environmental challenges and variation.
"Consistently, actively and adaptively, X outcome aligned", over all other potential outcomes, is as good a phrase for "goal of X" as any.
Yes, you can narrow the definition of "goal" in any way you want, for yourself. But my use of the term is consistent with normal use of the term, and its definition. It is not a technically defined term.
If you want to argue that there is a difference between "effective goals" for things that relentlessly and adaptively pursue some outcome, but without cognitive support, vs "reflective goals", created and/or carried out cognitively, often idiosyncratically to particular individuals, I would agree.
There is also a clear distinction between artifacts without structure and function aligned for some outcome, and those that "consistently, actively and adaptively" maximize the reliability of some very specific class of outcome. And calling the latter a "goal" is reasonable.
Again, this is a category error. It works well as a metaphor, but evolution has no goal. Evolution is a description of a simple fact of the universe: things that are good at making copies of themselves become more prevalent. Hence things that become better at making copies of themselves prevail more than ones that don't.