Evolutionary Pressures and Naïve Questions.

When we say that evolution works by "random mutation" are we really saying we don't know what drives evolution? 

Do we know for example that light does not put pressure on a blink organism to evolve an eye? How could we know it does not? 

If it does, is all evolution influenced by environment in this way, not as a random mutation that succeeds by chance but because certain pressures, however small, were exerted on an organism to evolve in a certain way? 

If that occurs, then what pressures exist for the evolution of a pre-frontal cortex? Is what we call "intelligence" or "self-awareness," or is even language an inevitable effect of evolution if not in every case, or on every planet in which life evolves, but somewhere in the universe not just given the obvious inevitability inherent in Murphy's Law but because of actual pressures from "being" on beings?

How could we know it is not?

These naïve questions may conceal an important insight.  As for the naivete, it doesn't take much poking around to discover that if some other force aside from random mutation is behind evolution, there's no evidence for it. It may be that in the presence of light, an eye will always form, given enough time. But in the absence of light, a light sensitive neuron will eventually form as well. It will come into existence as quickly as it would have in the presence of light. But there being to advantage to having it, it will not persist. On the other hand, the presence of light will provide an advantage, and so in that world it will persist and in fact develop, not because light puts pressure on it to develop but because a survival benefit maintains every chance improvement. 

Before saying more, I want to mention that when I say "light" I am in fact referring to that part of the spectrum of energy generated by stars and other sources which the eye interprets. "Light" per se does not exist. Energy exists which comes into being as light when something exists to interpret it, to translate it. So much exists that our senses do not translate because we do not need them--more than 90% of all reality, whatever reality is--remains untranslated, and what is translated is translated into a form that allows us to process it but does not allow us to perceive as it is--a thing which may not even be a thing. What I used to think was true of color--Kant's secondary quality--turns out to be true of everything I call a thing. 

But as for evolution, even if light puts no direct pressure on an organism to develop an eye, still eyes exist because they energy we call light exists and perceiving that energy helps us survive. 

The same is true of every other part of what we are, not just our senses but our reasoning ability. Reason exists because it helps us survive. Reason exists because the universe is orderly, and the better we perceive the patterns, the better our chances of survival. C. S. Lewis makes a big deal of the fact that reason exists. He finds spiritual significance. He says that reason as an accidental effect of random chance cannot be trusted. There would be no reason to trust it. An orderliness in the universe would not be enough for random chance to produce reason. It he's right then the there is more to the universe's orderliness than mere orderliness, there is a reason in it or behind it that made it orderly and that our reason is the image of. Reason is like light-energy, a force that the organism responds to that produces an eye. Orderliness is a fact, but not a force. So whether we can trust Lewis' conclusion depends on how evolution works. Does evolution respond in the same way to both facts and forces? Or is it the facticity of light-energy and not the force of light-energy that evolution responds to?