If you mean to say something like "all existence is objectively meaningless, and it is not objectively 'better' than nothingness", then it becomes another statement you need to usefully prove in order to go on with your argument.
The usage (without quibbling too much) of the word "meaning/meaninglessness" is in the commonly understood sense of "purpose/calling/life-objective/etc.". All these are human-defined and therefore "subjective" as life is experienced and lived. There are numerous ways of doing this as is evidenced by the various schools of philosophies/religions/cults/groups etc.
The two viewpoints i.e. 1) Objective view of Life/Existence from the "outside in" vs. 2) Subjective Experiential "inside out" view of Life need to be carefully disambiguated in one's mind.
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.
I’m all ears :-)
A more complex hypothesis isn't useful until you come up with a method of testing that will distinguish it from the simpler hypothesis. That doesn't mean you have disproved the more complex hypothesis; just that you shouldn't use that hypothesis until you actually have a need for it.
> A more complex hypothesis isn't useful until you come up with a method of testing that will distinguish it from the simpler hypothesis.
No, the condition is even stronger; a more complex hypothesis should not even be considered until the simpler hypothesis fails for some data/evidence.
It is one from a set of heuristics called philosophical razors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_razor) and uses Abductive reasoning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor#Controversial_as...
