As I see it, extended phenotype pushes the boundary of a species niche (as with cultural memetic evolution). Epigenetics is the information carrier of new genetic possibilities resulting from phenotypic forward push. Thus, blind natural selection versus random.

As for directionality to natural selection, if one views cosmic evolution as natural selection writ large (e.g., macroevolution ala entropy, negentropy, complexity) why isn’t same true for biological evolution. Or, as with punctuated evolution in biology from microbes to cognitive humans and nonlinearity in other evolving systems from big bang with few elements to complex cognitive biology, there is directionality.

Given your Medium bio, “Evolutionary biologist PhD on the general theory of Social Evolution, and personal interest in applications to AI,” seems ignoring Tegmark’s three forms of life is highly relevant to professed work. You can’t have one without the other — unless you have an hermeneutic ideological bias.

Doc Huston