>>13410454Human beings, like all other animals, are simply meat machines programmed to survive and reproduce in service of their genetics. All organic life is based on DNA; all DNA is based on molecular self-replication; all molecular self-replication is based on evolution. This fundamental truth of nature implies that the literal purpose of life is to survive and reproduce, for we are evolutionary vehicles for our selfish genes to efficiently propagate themselves and survive to the next generation. Different animals evolved different mechanisms for achieving this goal, but human beings evolved culture. Culture enabled human beings to become particularly social and cooperative creatures, organizing into institutions to help us survive for increasingly longer periods of time, and is the very reason we dominate the planet. In particular, culture allows individual human beings to stave off death anxiety by engaging in activities that promise immortality, either literally or symbolically. That's why we have death-defying ideologies such as religions, relationships, legacy, political movements, careerism, etc. Each of these have in common the evolutionary advantage of helping the individual human being, with a brain large and complex enough to be afraid of their impending doom, to forget that they will eventually die and no longer be able to reproduce.
The nature of life is to fight entropy, to constantly make itself more complex than it used to be, to transcend its own limitations. The meaning of life, evolutionarily speaking, is to live forever.
