I'm not saying an object is giving itself purpose. I'm saying that I can give a car a purpose.

So theoretically a universe a level above ours could have created this universe or life within this universe, for a purpose. That would not be us giving us a purpose. So it is possible that we have had that purpose applied in the creation of our reality.

For the record I think the odds are extremely, extremely low, that our universe was created from nothing, purely by accident. The odds of us being the first reality to develop any sense of digitalization is very slim, when you consider that anything beyond the initial reality will likely be simulations. Same as the idea of me being the first human is extremely unlikely, this universe is likely not a "first-generation" universe. Which is what Musk was getting at.

And I don't think there's anything that points in the direction of purely accidental. The only thing we know is that there are no miracles needed beyond the big bang for ourselves to develop. But we're not the result of pure randomness. There is a very specific set of physical laws that allow for stable matter, stable astronomical orbits, stable chemistry, and stable biology, that are a really really impressive set of coincidences, and it's not impossible that it was determined that these are the best situations to allow for conscious life to develop and so some "thing" could have set up a simulation/reality/universe with these specific constraints.

That "thing" may have had an intention, is what I'm getting at. We don't need to give ourselves a purpose. That's why atheism is such a poor idea, because it's just as definitive as any religion. Agnosticism is really the only logical thing because we can't see beyond the 13 billion light-years in only our universe. It's quite possible there is so much more out there at levels "above" us.

So I live my life assuming that I don't know anything. Our universe and life within it may have a purpose, or it may not, because that is the only logical way to live. Aside from the fact that nhilism is just depressing, it's also not logical unless you are convinced we live in a Newtonian/deterministic world with nothing beyond the big-bang, which is just an extremely bold statement to make. And to be 100% convinced that there is nothing beyond the big bang is just as arrogant as saying life only exists on Earth 100 years ago.

To be convinced you know what is going on in this universe is just extraordinarily arrogant, and I equate evangelical Atheism as exactly the same as evangelical religion. It is moored in more logic than typical religions, but not a complete logical system as logic only extends as far as we can see. Any kind of certainty is absurd.