This is a post I wrote on Quora, in answer to the question:
If I believe that life is completely meaningless, am I an existentialist or a nihilist?
My answer was ‘upvoted’ by Frederick Dolan, who is Professor at UC Berkeley, after I commented on his own answer to the same question.
Existentialism is often associated with the absurd, thanks to Camus mostly, which is a short step from nihilism in many people’s minds. There is a view among the scientific community that the Universe is meaningless and that the presence of sentient beings is just a freak accident. Paul Davies refers to this view as the ‘absurd universe’, and I tend to agree with him.
The point is that we find meaning in living our lives through relationships and projects, and even through career or vocation. Viktor Frankl elaborated on this in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, and added a third way, which is through dealing with adversity. This last ‘way’ might appear ‘absurd’ at first glance, but it’s the premise of virtually every story ever told; it’s a universal theme.
Sartre argued that we create our own ‘project’ just by living our lives, and this is what existentialism means to me. So I would contend that there is a direct connection between existentialism and the importance of finding meaning in our lives. In fact, having a ‘purpose’ is considered essential to mental health, according to psychologists. If the Universe has any meaning at all, it’s because it created sentient beings who find meaning against the odds that science tells us are astronomical, both literally and figuratively. Existentialism is about finding purpose in an absurd universe, which is the opposite of nihilism.
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