[uplifter]

Its conceivable that the universe could encode a goal somehow, after all its so vast, but that conceivability alone is not evidence for the existence of an encoded goal any more than the conceivability of extra-terrestrial intelligence, or of a higher design to reality, is proof of their existence. What science tells us is that the only goal nature seems to embody is following the physical laws we've been able to determine, and nothing more. I'd apply the same interesting hypothesis status to huge-time-scale teleology that we cannot discern, and perhaps it is both real and we will never be able to discern it. Personally I find the notions very interesting, but I don't see reason to believe in them. If there were good evidence for them, they'd be the subject of scientific study already.

But we seem to agree that natural selection doesn't have a goal. In my observation, any purported overarching goal that is ascribed to natural selection, including the measure of inclusive fitness[0], can be reduced to some function of the context in which it is being observed, like moth coloration was influenced by soot levels.

As to my main claim, I do believe it is necessary that an encoding of a goal is necessary for choice among actions in pursuit of a goal, because some kind of reference to a goal is necessary to compare options in a decision algorithm. In the case of a-life systems which have goals, that encoding is somewhere in the algorithm of evolution rules combined with the initial state of the simulation. In the case of nature, I don't see a place where that encoding could exist, except the trivial "goal" that all elements will follow the laws of physics.

Please note though that I never put it that "the implementation must embody the goal," I was more careful with my language by saying that it must have an accessible or working encoding of the goal, one its decision process or evolution rule would need to reference in order to make decisions that favored it. The encoding need not be internal (so embody is definitely not necessary), and none of these things are necessarily explicit or well partitioned (e.g. an evolution rule can implicitly encode a goal).

edit: addendum: [0] On inclusive fitness being reducible to situational factors, I'm just following the direction of M.A. Nowak, C.E. Tarnita and E.O. Wilson on this: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09205