A new approach to evolution

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

What is the big picture you people have created?

The “big picture” so far is a mix of theories and hypotheses that together take a us a far as we can reasonably go toward understanding the universe.

The big bang.... with no idea of what causes it in the first place. No idea of 95% of the matter in the universe. Dark Matter, Dark Energy....what are they....do they even exist?  QM and relativity don't add up.

Yes, there are lots of unanswered questions still. Exciting isn’t it?

Evolution....based largely on chance and random events.

Depends what you mean by “largely” though remember? For practical purposes mutations are "random”, but their interactions with environments are anything but random.

You really should understand this by now.

Inheritance is still not understood.

To a significant degree, yes it is.

Technology ....yes... it has helped somewhat but also created many problems.

“Somewhat”? Seriously?

All very well....but what does it all add up to? Nothing. A vast universe with us on a tiny planet with no idea why we are here. Oh...I am not even supposed to raise that question...!

You can ask anything you like, but you need to understand too that a “why” question is incoherent unless you can establish first that there need be a why. This is the begging the question mistake you’re so fond of.

Human mind and consciousness...still a great mystery.

Largely yes, though inroads into that are being made all the time. So?

Death....no idea, except some silly definition about permanent cessation of vital functions...

What makes you think that definition to be silly?

All morality decided by unreliable activists and cranky judges.

“All morality” isn’t “decided” that way.

Important and personally relevant areas to humans such as NDE's, reincarnation research etc. brushed off as nonsense.

They’re not “important” when they fail basic tests of reason and evidence. That these daftnesses may be “personally important” to you nonetheless tells us more about your credulity than about these supposed phenomena.

Where really are we?! What big picture?!

Where we “really” are is inching our way slowly and painstakingly toward a greater understanding of reality.

It is only when we understand consciousness and death will we really understand our lives in the right context.

We already understand death, and the consciousness claim is debatable.

At that point the picture created so far by science will seem insignificant and unimportant.

No, the “picture created so far by science” will seem what it will be – important steps along the way which enable(d) richer understandings in due course.

What you’ve tried here is just the old “science doesn’t know everything” trope. No-one claims otherwise though (least of all people who do science), but absent its tools and methods your blind guessing about a supposed “big picture” is worse than useless.

Try to remember this too.     

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

And the material definition of  'a yearning, a desire to seek the truth' is .... ?

Don't know (though it seems likely to be just a manifestation of our species' inherent characteristic of pattern- and explanation-seeking that's brought with it significant evolutionary advantages).

So?

[torridon]

What is the big picture you people have created?  The big bang.... with no idea of what causes it in the first place. No idea of 95% of the matter in the universe. Dark Matter, Dark Energy....what are they....do they even exist?  QM and relativity don't add up.

Evolution....based largely on chance and random events. Inheritance is still not understood.  Technology ....yes... it has helped somewhat but also created many problems.

All very well....but what does it all add up to? Nothing. A vast universe with us on a tiny planet with no idea why we are here. Oh...I am not even supposed to raise that question...!

Human mind and consciousness...still a great mystery.  Death....no idea, except some silly definition about permanent cessation of vital functions... All morality decided by unreliable activists and cranky judges.

Important and personally relevant areas to humans such as NDE's, reincarnation research etc. brushed off as nonsense.

Where really are we?! What big picture?!

It is only when we understand consciousness and death will we really understand our lives in the right context. At that point the picture created so far by science will seem insignificant and unimportant.

it is better to be true to the discoveries that we have made so far, rather than fantasising some imagined grand narrative into which human consciousness and values will one day find their proper place.   Be evidence-led, start from the ground up, put the pieces together as you find them, not as you would like them to be in order to construct some pleasing anthropocentric artifice.  Reality has an inconvenient habit of puncturing such illusions sooner or later.

[Sriram]

it is better to be true to the discoveries that we have made so far, rather than fantasising some imagined grand narrative into which human consciousness and values will one day find their proper place.   Be evidence-led, start from the ground up, put the pieces together as you find them, not as you would like them to be in order to construct some pleasing anthropocentric artifice.  Reality has an inconvenient habit of puncturing such illusions sooner or later.

We have already discussed how evidence can be all around us but we may not notice.  We have to start noticing..... for which the mind has to be suitably prepared.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

We have already discussed how evidence can be all around us but we may not notice.

That can be true, yes.

We have to start noticing.....

Er, no. Before you can “start noticing” evidence you need determine what actually is evidence, how you’d obtain it and how you’d evaluate it once you had it. Otherwise you could call anything you like “evidence” when it’s just as likely to be no such thing.   

…for which the mind has to be suitably prepared.

Depends what you mean by “prepared”, but inasmuch as you might for example consider it to mean something like, “removing so far as possible subjective biases so as to approximate the best available objective explanatory model” then fair enough. Your problem though is that, so far at least, you’ve never managed even to suggest that you’ve “prepared” your mind in that direction. That is, subjectivity and biases are all you have.

By the way, if you insist on routinely just ignoring every correction you’re given here how do you expect ever to learn anything?   

[Maeght]

And the material definition of  'a yearning, a desire to seek the truth' is .... ?

You said 'We have a yearning, a desire to seek the truth behind our existence - a yearning which in itself is evidence that the human mind comprises more than the mere consequence of material reactions.' so really need to back that up. Asking what is the alternative isn't doing that. I don't have to provide an alternative - if I did I would then need to provide evidence to back it up.

[Outrider]

What is the big picture you people have created?

The point is not to create the picture, it's to reveal it.

The big bang.... with no idea of what causes it in the first place. No idea of 95% of the matter in the universe. Dark Matter, Dark Energy....what are they....do they even exist?  QM and relativity don't add up.

Why does 'I don't know' scare you so much that you need to cling to a baseless attempt at explanation that doesn't resolve anything?

Evolution....based largely on chance and random events.

That's where the evidence leads, yes.

Inheritance is still not understood.

There are always nuances to uncover, but as a principle it's pretty well understood.

Technology ....yes... it has helped somewhat but also created many problems.

Arguably the technology merely is, it's the people applying it, and how they choose to do so, that's problematic at times, and people have never needed technology to be problematic.

All very well....but what does it all add up to? Nothing. A vast universe with us on a tiny planet with no idea why we are here.

Worse than that, no obvious reason to the think that there IS a reason why we're here.

Oh...I am not even supposed to raise that question...!

You can raise any question you like, but if you do you should have a genuine interest in what the possible answers are, and a basis for accepting the one that you do.

Human mind and consciousness...still a great mystery.  Death....no idea, except some silly definition about permanent cessation of vital functions...

Still struggling with that 'I don't know' situation, it seems. Does mystery upset you, frighten you, unsettle you? What is it?

All morality decided by unreliable activists and cranky judges.

When instead it should be alleged by unreliable witnesses to be the revealed wisdom of cranky gods? Think for yourself, take responsibility for your own actions, don't abrogate your moral conscience to obey someone else's directive because they claim 'holy'.

Important and personally relevant areas to humans such as NDE's, reincarnation research etc. brushed off as nonsense.

They aren't brushed off at all, they are extensively and deeply researched because that degree of commonality of response to a stimulus is indicative of something. What they aren't, necessarily, is just accepted at face value because we know that human beings are unreliable witnesses at the best of times, and under the physiological and psychological stresses of a near death event that unreliability is only magnified.

Where really are we?! What big picture?!

The big picture appears, at the moment, to be a whole lot of darkness with just a patch of human exploration lighting a corner - maybe we'll spread across the picture, maybe we'll find different coloured lights brightening other areas.

It is only when we understand consciousness and death will we really understand our lives in the right context.

How can you be confident of a what the implications of knowledge of death and consciousness (notwithstanding the understanding we have of those already which you've offered no reason to think is wrong) will be, until and unless they happen? You don't - can't - know the 'right context' of something that, by your own telling, no-one understands.

At that point the picture created so far by science will seem insignificant and unimportant.

Hardly surprising that would be your conclusion given that a) you've not really looked at it, b) the bits you have looked at you've looked at from the wrong side, and c) you started looking at it with the preconceived notion that it was wrong.

O.

[Sriram]

I said the tiny picture already created would be insignificant....not wrong. Present materialistic picture could be right and still be unimportant compared to more significant findings about consciousness and death. These are the more relevant aspects that we need to know about.

I never said that science is wrong (though some fondly held theories such as random variations and NS could be wrong). I am only saying that the focus on the material aspects alone is wrong.  We need to focus more on the mind, consciousness and death.

But research in these areas is limited to neuroscience where merely peering into the brain is considered as sufficient.

The mind and the brain are different. We have insufficient and the wrong tools for the kind of research required. People need to think out of the box and shed their fear of non physical realities. 

[torridon]

I said the tiny picture already created would be insignificant....not wrong. Present materialistic picture could be right and still be unimportant compared to more significant findings about consciousness and death. These are the more relevant aspects that we need to know about.

I never said that science is wrong (though some fondly held theories such as random variations and NS could be wrong). I am only saying that the focus on the material aspects alone is wrong.  We need to focus more on the mind, consciousness and death.

But research in these areas is limited to neuroscience where merely peering into the brain is considered as sufficient.

The mind and the brain are different. We have insufficient and the wrong tools for the kind of research required. People need to think out of the box and shed their fear of non physical realities.

You keep on claiming that science is wrong whilst denying that you are claiming such.  This is evident in the above post.  If evolution by mutation and selection is 'wrong' then we can we might as well throw out the entirety of science, as there is hardly anything else that is so well attested and supported by evidence as this founding principle of biology.  The picture we have from science may well be incomplete but really you are not going to get anywhere by dismissing the main peices of the puzzle that we have discovered to date.  Whatever grand narrative you care to come up with, it has to respect this or it is worthless fantasy.

Mind and brain are the same thing in the sense that they are best understood as aspects of the same thing, the experiential, or subjective aspect and the objective, or material aspect.  Going by the evidence, the two are intimately bonded, you cannot have one without the other.

Everything has a subjective and an objective aspect.  Blueness for example is the experiential aspext of lightwaves with wavelengths of 450 to 495 (nm).  You don't get to have blueness if such lightwaves don't exist.

[Sriram]

You keep on claiming that science is wrong whilst denying that you are claiming such.  This is evident in the above post.  If evolution by mutation and selection is 'wrong' then we can we might as well throw out the entirety of science, as there is hardly anything else that is so well attested and supported by evidence as this founding principle of biology.  The picture we have from science may well be incomplete but really you are not going to get anywhere by dismissing the main peices of the puzzle that we have discovered to date.  Whatever grand narrative you care to come up with, it has to respect this or it is worthless fantasy.

Mind and brain are the same thing in the sense that they are best understood as aspects of the same thing, the experiential, or subjective aspect and the objective, or material aspect.  Going by the evidence, the two are intimately bonded, you cannot have one without the other.

Everything has a subjective and an objective aspect.  Blueness for example is the experiential aspext of lightwaves with wavelengths of 450 to 495 (nm).  You don't get to have blueness if such lightwaves don't exist.

Just because natural selection is just a metaphor and you have no idea whether the genetic variations are actually random or not....does not mean that the big bang or QM or relativity are wrong.  That is what I mean.

Understanding subjectivity (consciousness) is fundamental. Once that is understood...it is like looking outside the VR headset at the real world.  We will have a top down view and will see everything in context. At that point....evolution, its purpose and its true mechanisms will also become obvious.

This is when....instead of continuing with the microscopic perspective as at present....we will have a bigger picture view (not necessarily the complete picture).

[Gordon]

The mind and the brain are different. We have insufficient and the wrong tools for the kind of research required. People need to think out of the box and shed their fear of non physical realities.

Just no: the mind, as we experience it, is but a function of the brain: no functional human brain = no human mind, and vice versa.

What is a "non physical reality" - can you cite one and explain its 'non physical' characteristics?

[Sriram]

Understanding hardware is not the same as understanding software. Software is hardware dependent...I agree.... but that does not mean they are the same thing.

You cannot understand software by merely poking around into the hardware.

[torridon]

Just because natural selection is just a metaphor and you have no idea whether the genetic variations are actually random or not....does not mean that the big bang or QM or relativity are wrong.  That is what I mean.

Understanding subjectivity (consciousness) is fundamental. Once that is understood...it is like looking outside the VR headset at the real world.  We will have a top down view and will see everything in context. At that point....evolution, its purpose and its true mechanisms will also become obvious.

This is when....instead of continuing with the microscopic perspective as at present....we will have a bigger picture view (not necessarily the complete picture).

Natural Selection is not a metaphor, this has been explained to you dozens of times already.  A metaphor is a linguistic construct. NS can no more be a metaphor than photosynthesis or electromagetism can.  These are all phenomena that we observe with regard to how the natural world works.  This is really elementary science but you seem to have some sort of mental block about it and you aren't going to make any progress until you get your head round these basic insights.

[Gordon]

Understanding hardware is not the same as understanding software. Software is hardware dependent...I agree.... but that does not mean they are the same thing.

You cannot understand software by merely poking around into the hardware.

Have you considered that in the case of mind/brain the 'hardware' and 'software' might well be one and the same: and that the computer vs programme analogy doesn't really fly.

[Outrider]

I said the tiny picture already created would be insignificant....not wrong.

What reasoning have you undertaken to determine how much of the picture has already been revealed? You can't say whether it's right or wrong, the best you can do is reailse that it's possible.

Present materialistic picture could be right and still be unimportant compared to more significant findings about consciousness and death.

Could be. Do you have a reason to think that's the case, or just your devotion to your preconception?

These are the more relevant aspects that we need to know about.

Again, what methodology are you using to make that determination?

I never said that science is wrong (though some fondly held theories such as random variations and NS could be wrong).

You're actually going further than that - you're not saying that the notion of scientific enquiry is inherently wrong, I'll grant you, but you are claiming that it is inherently limited to the point where it is no longer useful for further exploration of evolution, and at the same time specifically saying that random variation is not the case. I'm still unclear as to whether you think Natural Selection is actually a thing or not, I suspect you don't think it's unguidedly natural, but that's not important to this point.

I am only saying that the focus on the material aspects alone is wrong.

But you've provided no basis for that. You've suggested that you'd like the explanation to be woo, but you've offered absolutely nothing in defence of that proposition. Even if you could, somehow, comprehensively debunk random variation and natural selection, that still wouldn't in any way actually support your claims of panpsychism or any of the other spiritu-mystic witchcraft that you propose. You need a methodology that you currently don't have, a basis to consider that methodology reliable which you don't have, and then the application of that methodology over a broad range of people, cultures, backgrounds, timeframes and examples to come close to having a basis to put it up against the current explanation based on scientific enquiry.

We need to focus more on the mind, consciousness and death.

Because you (and one eminent heart specialist) have reservations about natural selection and random variation (and different qualms, at that).

But research in these areas is limited to neuroscience where merely peering into the brain is considered as sufficient.

If you have an alternative, reliable methodology go get your Nobel prize, but if all you have is 'what if woo...' then I'll hold off on discarding two centuries of accumulated understanding from conventional science just yet.

The mind and the brain are different.

No-one is suggesting any different, but if you want to suggest that mind is something more than activity in a brain you need a basis for that, and you don't appear to have it.

We have insufficient and the wrong tools for the kind of research required.

And your basis for that claim is, what, because it seems from here like your basis for that is that you don't like the answers that science comes to.

People need to think out of the box and shed their fear of non physical realities.

I am exactly as afraid of non-physical realities as I am of gods, given that I don't have a basis to accept that either of them exists. I'm not afraid of the Jabberwocky, Cthulu or Slaanesh either, for the same (non-) reasons.
 
O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

I said the tiny picture already created would be insignificant....not wrong. Present materialistic picture could be right and still be unimportant compared to more significant findings about consciousness and death. These are the more relevant aspects that we need to know about.

Do you have any reason to think that the answers to questions about “more significant findings about consciousness and death” won’t be materialistic in character (or indeed that there’s even such a thing as a non-materialistic)?

I never said that science is wrong (though some fondly held theories such as random variations and NS could be wrong). I am only saying that the focus on the material aspects alone is wrong.  We need to focus more on the mind, consciousness and death.

You’ve consistently misrepresented the findings of science, and anything science has discovered “could be” wrong – that’s why it deals in theories rather than in proofs.

But research in these areas is limited to neuroscience where merely peering into the brain is considered as sufficient.

Wrong again – it’s not that it’s necessarily “sufficient” but rather than currently that’s the only approach we have that’s distinguishable from dumb guessing. Whether it turns out to be sufficient is unknown. You’ve been asked many times for a method to distinguish your claims from dumb guessing, but you always run way rather than answer that. 

The mind and the brain are different.

Current thinking is that the former is an emergent property of the latter if that’s what you mean?

We have insufficient and the wrong tools for the kind of research required.

Perhaps – so suggest some different tools instead to do the job then. What’s stopping you?

People need to think out of the box and shed their fear of non physical realities.

And the straw man to finish. No-one has a “fear of non-physical realities”. Your a priori problem is to demonstrate that there are such things as non-physical realities at all.   

Just because natural selection is just a metaphor…

No it isn’t

…and you have no idea whether the genetic variations are actually random or not....does not mean that the big bang or QM or relativity are wrong.  That is what I mean.

Whether anything is “truly” random is unknown, but for practical purposes it’s reasonable to treat genetic mutations as random.

Understanding subjectivity (consciousness) is fundamental. Once that is understood...it is like looking outside the VR headset at the real world.  We will have a top down view and will see everything in context. At that point....evolution, its purpose…

What makes you think evolution has a “purpose”?

…and its true mechanisms will also become obvious.

Evolution is already one of the best-understood and most robust “mechanisms” science has explained with the T of E. 

This is when....instead of continuing with the microscopic perspective as at present....we will have a bigger picture view (not necessarily the complete picture).

“Microscopic” is just you poisoning the well with pejorative language again. If you want a more accurate understanding of the picture on the jig-saw box you need to assemble the pieces one at a time. Anything else is just dumb guessing. 

Try to remember this.

Understanding hardware is not the same as understanding software. Software is hardware dependent...I agree.... but that does not mean they are the same thing.

You do know that hardware and software are both material phenomena right?

You cannot understand software by merely poking around into the hardware.

Actually you can, provided by “poking around” you mean something like “apply the right diagnostic tools” – by reading the code for example.

Oh, and yet again: when you routinely ignore every correction you’re given how do you expect ever to learn anything?

Or should we just conclude that you have no interest in learning anything?

[Sriram]

Natural Selection is not a metaphor, this has been explained to you dozens of times already.  A metaphor is a linguistic construct. NS can no more be a metaphor than photosynthesis or electromagetism can.  These are all phenomena that we observe with regard to how the natural world works.  This is really elementary science but you seem to have some sort of mental block about it and you aren't going to make any progress until you get your head round these basic insights.

And...I am not alone in calling NS a metaphor.....

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-021-09405-3

**************

Charles Darwin (1859) introduced the idea of natural selection (a non-intentional filter) as a metaphorical comparison with artificial (intended) selection. There is no actual selection carried out by natural ‘selection’. Nature – in this case the different rates of survival – is simply a passive filter. Yet it is often presented as the active driver of evolution.

There are active drivers of evolution, to which I will return later, but it is an illusion to think that ‘blind’ natural selection is really ‘selecting’ or could be an ‘active’ driver. It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection. As I have already noted, this move to exclude genuine agency was first made in the nineteenth century by Alfred Russel Wallace, leading him to disagree with Darwin’s distinction between natural and artificial selection.

I think Darwin was right and was brilliantly foresighted to resist Wallace’s attempt to subsume intentional sexual (and by implication other forms of social) selection to natural selection. Brilliant because I think he must have been aware of the importance of the distinction he was making. He did not use the word agency, but I think he would have agreed with biosemioticians that the concept is necessary to understand the meanings organisms give to the signs and communicative paradigms they use (Tønnessen 2015a).

***************

Italics mine.

[Outrider]

And...I am not alone in calling NS a metaphor.....

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-021-09405-3

Yes, the term 'Natural Selection' is a metaphor.

[quote source=wiktionary.org]metaphor - The use of a word or phrase to refer to something other than its literal meaning, invoking an implicit similarity between the thing described and what is denoted by the word or phrase.[/quote]

There cannot actually be selection because there is nothing to choose, no selector, but the process has the effect of selection, and therefore the metaphor has arisen. The fact that it's a metaphor does not mean that it is not happening exactly as described.

Charles Darwin (1859) introduced the idea of natural selection (a non-intentional filter) as a metaphorical comparison with artificial (intended) selection. There is no actual selection carried out by natural ‘selection’. Nature – in this case the different rates of survival – is simply a passive filter. Yet it is often presented as the active driver of evolution.

Not by science it isn't, it's not depicted as an active anything, it's a reactive process that happens as an inevitable result of ecological pressure on the natural variation already present in organisms.

There are active drivers of evolution, to which I will return later, but it is an illusion to think that ‘blind’ natural selection is really ‘selecting’ or could be an ‘active’ driver. It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection. As I have already noted, this move to exclude genuine agency was first made in the nineteenth century by Alfred Russel Wallace, leading him to disagree with Darwin’s distinction between natural and artificial selection.

See this, this here - this is EXPLICITLY repudiating your idea that there is an active selection process, that something is choosing particular traits because they will be useful in the future. This isn't undermining our case, it's undermining yours.

O.

[Sriram]

See this, this here - this is EXPLICITLY repudiating your idea that there is an active selection process, that something is choosing particular traits because they will be useful in the future. This isn't undermining our case, it's undermining yours.

O.

No....it doesn't. He is clear......."There are active drivers of evolution, to which I will return later, but it is an illusion to think that ‘blind’ natural selection is really ‘selecting’ or could be an ‘active’ driver."

He talks of active drivers of evolution further down the article.

[Outrider]

No....it doesn't. He is clear......."There are active drivers of evolution, to which I will return later, but it is an illusion to think that ‘blind’ natural selection is really ‘selecting’ or could be an ‘active’ driver."

There are active drivers, he asserts - you've not copied the part where he explains what he thinks those are, so I can't comment - but the rest of what he says explicitly says that natural selection happens, and is not guided.

He talks of active drivers of evolution further down the article.

If you don't cite that bit, we can't talk about that bit.

O.

[Sriram]

There are active drivers, he asserts - you've not copied the part where he explains what he thinks those are, so I can't comment - but the rest of what he says explicitly says that natural selection happens, and is not guided.

If you don't cite that bit, we can't talk about that bit.

O.

I have given the link. Read it.

He says clearly in the para quoted by you...."It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection. As I have already noted, this move to exclude genuine agency was first made in the nineteenth century by Alfred Russel Wallace, leading him to disagree with Darwin’s distinction between natural and artificial selection."

Read that again please.

[Maeght]

I have given the link. Read it.

He says clearly in the para quoted by you...."It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection. As I have already noted, this move to exclude genuine agency was first made in the nineteenth century by Alfred Russel Wallace, leading him to disagree with Darwin’s distinction between natural and artificial selection."

Read that again please.

What is the evidence to support his claim?

[Outrider]

I have given the link. Read it.

The characterisation of Weismann removing Darwin's acceptance of inherited characteristics being passed on is, at best, misleading. Darwin explicitly spoke out against the LaMarckian idea of inherited characteristics being passed on, but expressed that there might be mechanisms which could influence heredity which could be passed on - today we'd call these mutagens, but given that he didn't have any idea about genetics, let alone anything that could affect them, that caveat doesn't really put the credit on Weissman who merely codified Darwin's ideas in the language of genetics once it had been discovered.

Noble's problem throughout is dualism. His argument is predicated on the idea that when, say, a female bird is attracted to the bright plumage of a male, that sexual selection is somehow artificial selection by a conscious agency, ignoring the implicit agreement in modern biology that this sexual preference is also an inherited, natural trait which has been selected for over time. He's suggesting that bird consciousness is something 'other', something non-biological, and in starting with that premise - which he at no point attempts to justify - he presumes an outside force acting upon nature for which there's no evidence.

He then tries to suggest that the modern synthesis somehow precludes physiological effects on sex-cells - it doesn't - but then goes on to confuse those mutagenic and terratogenic effects with epigenetics, which is a different mechanism, and from that conclude ...something? It's not really clear where he's going with that.

He then goes on to claim that he accepts the limits on mutagenic and terratogenic effects, but immediately contradicts himself to suggest that organisms undertake 'self-mutagenic' or 'self-terratogenic' internal biological activities, for which he doesn't offer any basis.

None of this, by the way, suggests any conscious activity causing any of this - nothing that Noble is suggesting here, even if proved to be true, backs up your panpsychism notion that any of this is guided.

He says clearly in the para quoted by you...."It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality.

Yes. He's saying that there isn't really any consciousness 'selecting' anything, the idea of nature as a selector is a metaphor. He's explicitly saying that nothing is choosing these traits.

If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection. As I have already noted, this move to exclude genuine agency was first made in the nineteenth century by Alfred Russel Wallace, leading him to disagree with Darwin’s distinction between natural and artificial selection."

That's an explanation of the origin of the distinction, although I disagree that it was Wallace in isolation that made the distinction. Darwin was on record as saying that, amongst the various reasons he held off publishing his work was the realisation that the implications of it were that evolution was not planned, not guided, and what the impact of that realisation might be on the comprehensively religious culture in which he lived.

Read that again please.

Read it again. It still doesn't agree with you.

O.

[Sriram]

You are now misrepresenting me deliberately!   

The idea of consciousness and panpsychism are mine. They are not Noble's. Noble merely states that Natural Selection is a metaphor and cannot be seen as selecting anything in reality. By thinking of NS as a real mechanism we are overlooking the real and active mechanisms by which organisms choose their traits.

"It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection."

This means that real intended selection is being overlooked by attributing the process to Natural Selection (unintended).  He has stated elsewhere (see the OP) that the real process of evolution is Lamarckian inheritance, epigenetics, plasticity etc.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

...we are overlooking the real and active mechanisms by which organisms choose their traits.

Organisms don't "chose their own traits". You don't (I presume) have the trait of echo location. Why not then just choose to have it and report back on how you got on?