The importance of life?
There are several convincing answers possible to this question. Many come from a particular religion or ideology, which immediately makes them somewhat weaker.
An interesting approach is therefore to investigate whether an argument can be found based on a view outside the human being.
Better yet, ideally it should come from the perspective of something that does not live. In this thought experiment we look at the view of something that has not lived, to see if we can discover something from this perspective. Hence the title above. How would something that stands outside of life look at living beings? Would this entity see any possibility of finding that activity meaningful?
A clear, somewhat objective starting point from which reasoning can proceed is the theory of evolution. According to this idea, seen from the outside by a being that has never lived, we are basically a process that could have happened or not. A cell division, as part of the universal cycle of arising and passing away, that has become active in this universe for no reason.
The suffering of the dog
An interesting situation from which meaning can be analyzed — insofar as beings that have never lived would have any interest in it — is suffering. What motivates living beings that are in great pain to continue anyway while they are part of an arbitrary process?
Why does the dog with only one leg keep wagging its tail and keep on living? What motivates this strange creature, despite everything, to enthusiastically hobble to the door at the sound of its owner’s voice?
This question also applies to humans. Why would we, as beings with consciousness, allow suffering into our lives and not immediately turn to escapism at the first sign of pain? Why don’t we collectively live under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or, when things get tough, keep on living and struggling?
For something that has never lived, the question must be baffling.
Where do these creatures get the meaning from that allows them to trivialize suffering and adversity and then, casually, at full speed, as if nothing has happened, hobble, full of joy, ignoring all limitations, after a ball?
Explanations from ideology, religion, or psychological ones such as hope fall short here. This phenomenon can be observed in the slug, the dog, and the human being. Even if the suffering of the slug that is fighting for survival is a purely evolutionary response to pain, it still shows that the slug apparently sees it as worth suffering for. The theory of evolution explains the persistence, but the persistence shows meaning for the slug.
Slugs and meaning
A clearer connection between slugs and humans — one the one-legged dog also possesses — is the experience of the world. The slug experiences what happens and it becomes meaningful because that is how it can perceive reality.
This provides an explanation of what, in itself and apart from pleasure and pain, makes it worthwhile.
Experience lies outside theoretical systems; it is direct. This is exactly what the being who have never been alive misses. Experiencing what happens gives meaning to everything you do, including suffering.
Things become important through your own eyes, as something that experiences the world through itself. The experience of what you live through is important through your own perspective, regardless of the content. A tomato plant and a scientist experience value to what they undergo because they experience it through their own being.
The life of the slug that eats a tomato plant and is then eaten by a three-legged dog does not seem all that special objectively. From the point of view of the slug, every part is a special experience, full of meaning.
The importance of the slug’s life, for the slug itself, is the experience of what it undergoes from its own perspective. The same is likely true for the dog, the tomato plant, and the human being.
Existential value according to the non-living?
This even acquires an existential meaning to which the never-living could attribute value.
As a being with experience, you (un)consciously persist in being something that experiences instead of becoming something that is no longer there.
A choice to go from something (a human/slug that experiences itself) to nothing (death). Everything that lives therefore proves, by living, that in its own eyes it is in fact meaningful.
Not only meaningful in relation to itself, but also in relation to non-existence.
The answer to the question: What is more important — something that experiences, or something that is not there?
Because something that has never lived has no meaning in itself, and a consciousness that experiences does, you can say that experiencing life, including suffering, is inherently important.
Experiencing reality is what gives life meaning, regardless of what kind of experience it is. In this way, in fact everything you do is meaningful: you are experiencing yourself as a being that also could not have existed.
Conclusion
The most fascinating part of this thought experiment is, I think, this:
In a largely empty universe, dotted with lifeless planets, where on one of these worlds something has arisen that can move — and some of these things even have intelligence that can reflect on consciousness, where it can view its existence as nothing less than a miracle, where it can directly conclude the importance of its existence from the experience of itself, and where this is reinforced by the insight that only these rare and fascinating beings can have experience in itself:
This being wonders whether its existence has any meaning at all.
