| But we don't have an "outside-in" view? You have an inside + "guess the outside" view. Just because we can imagine an "outside-in" view, it doesn't mean we have it. If there is an "objective" meaning to our lives which is without recourse to an inside-out view, then we have no access to it. Occam's Razor, fewest entities/assumptions, etc is so problematic, because it is not invariant to being re-parameterised. I.e. under one description X is more complex than Y, and under another Y is more complex than X. Here is Roger Penrose talking about the fine tuning of the Universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDqny7UzyR4 Many use these observations to argue for design. Say it became a scientific consensus that design was the strongest hypothesis, because it just kept making good predictions. Design implies purpose. Would life still be meaningless? Is this all just a regress to "nothing is just as good as something therefore all life is meaningless"? I think that's where you have to end up to defend Nihilism. |
This is not quite true. There is an Objective Reality consisting of physical laws (invariant in our Universe), Evolutionary evidence explaining the plethora of flora/fauna etc. We are but one species amongst the many that populate this planet. There is nothing "special" about Homo Sapiens (we simply occupy our own niche in the evolutionary tree) except for our different brains resulting in a greater degree of "self-awareness" and more complex social structures than other species.
> If there is an "objective" meaning to our lives which is without recourse to an inside-out view, then we have no access to it.
Not true at all. The whole of Modern Science is founded on trying to find out Objective Reality independent of us and has been quite successful at it.