Humans acting on this instinct for survival seems irrational in view of the scientific big picture, does it not?
The fate of everything is nothingness on large enough time scales, at least based on what we currently know. Either the universe as a whole collapses into a singularity and crushes any living beings to death, or it expands forever and dies a cold, barren heat death.
Intelligent life in this universe has a finite shelf life either way, unless we find something badly broken in our current understanding of physics and cosmology.
Life is irrational, there's no real objective basis for anything but nihilism. But I like to go with the philosophy of "the meaning of life is a life of meaning". IOW, as I interpret it, we get to choose what meaning to apply to our own lives. Rationality be damned, we decide what we value and what we live for.
The fate of everything is nothingness on large enough time scales, at least based on what we currently know. Either the universe as a whole collapses into a singularity and crushes any living beings to death, or it expands forever and dies a cold, barren heat death.
Intelligent life in this universe has a finite shelf life either way, unless we find something badly broken in our current understanding of physics and cosmology.
Life is irrational, there's no real objective basis for anything but nihilism. But I like to go with the philosophy of "the meaning of life is a life of meaning". IOW, as I interpret it, we get to choose what meaning to apply to our own lives. Rationality be damned, we decide what we value and what we live for.