Sorry if my comment is a bit too short:-

PURPOSE AND SIGNIFICANCE

A program may serves a purpose P of adding all the numbers that are divisible by 999 under a given range.

But what is the point of such operation?

There is this purpose P but what is the significance of such a purpose?

Perhaps this operation done by the program is a part of a bigger program that utilizes it for a bigger purpose.

But then I can ask what is the point of this bigger purpose?

So answering the point of a purpose by another purpose is kind of regressive.

And if there is no meta-purpose for the existence of the program, does that mean there isn't any meaning of the purpose? the program adds whatever just cause it does.

There are people who find lack of objective purpose unsettling.

Then let us assume that human life has a purpose which is to provide research data to some alien overlord who is manipulating our life, inducing pain and suffering to our being with advanced machines just for some data.

Would then the people who don't like the lack of purpose, be happy with such a purpose?

Would they gladly serve as slaves for some alien if only human life was created for a purpose like serving aliens?

Or when they were talking about purpose they were talking about a meaningful purpose?

But may be what is meaningless to humans may be meaningful for the aliens....so then what they really want, is a purpose that is meaningful to them not just any purpose?

Having a mundane purpose or relatively pointless purpose is pretty much same as having no purpose at all....Same in the sense is that there is a lack of meaningfulness is both the cases.

SIGNIFICANCE

Now what exactly is significance?

From observation, it appears to me significance is related to our personal values, feelings, fear etc.

For example, humans in general mostly think death to be a big deal, and they would rather avoid it. So in effect terminal diseases are also a matter of big distress.

So if someone finds an efficient cure for a previously un-curable or hard-to cure some common terminal disease, that cure might be viewed as 'significant'.

One may find art to be meaningful because one get to feel a certain pleasure and depth from aesthetics and stuff.

Money may be viewed as significant if one wants to drive Lamborghini.

On the other hand one may be interested in living in forest and pursuing isolation and inner peace and thereby view money as insignificant or not-so-significant.

So almost all the time meaningfulness and significance is related to our personal values, desire, fear, etc

That is, its subjective.

SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE

If significance is a subjective matter then so must be the significance of life.

Purpose of 'life in general', if there are any, is not that dependent on human feelings and opinions.

It may not even be as convenient. The existing purpose may be worse than no-purpose at all.

People who believes in existence of a meaning of life probably believes in the existence of some significant meaningful purpose.....

But whether something is significant or not, is a subjective matter.

Beings who are utterly apathetic and even expresses a meh regarding death may not find life to matter at all.

Irrespective of life having purpose or not, it would be still meaningless (without significance) to such beings.

PURPOSE OF LIFE

How to determine the purpose of something?

It can be probably determined by observing the functions executed by the something.

For example it can be concluded that the purpose a program is to add by observing its code and output.

But is this process of determination valid for all cases? Not really.

Sometimes some objects may induce subjective effects thereby making its purpose kind of subjective....

For example some art-piece may induce a feeling of attraction of person A but a feeling of repulsion to person B. So its function is not that concrete.

There another a bit more abstract variety of purpose.....for example a purpose given by the creator to the creation.

For example an artist creating something for a specific reason. The reason may not be easily interpreted by the observers;

the artist's creation may end up serving a function different from the original intention.

But its purpose of existence\being created is still the original purpose for which the artist created it.

Now which form of purpose does life serve?

Reproduction, growth, evolution and all of these stuffs are kind of apparent functions of living organisms in general. Is that it, the purpose of life?

Or is there something more, perhaps a higher power who gave a higher reason to life.

Note that if a purpose is given it is given mostly by a person.

Some chemical reactions may end up producing a fire...the fire is created but not really any purpose is given by the chemical reactions to the fire, apparently...as the chemical reaction is not some sentient being.

The question of giving a purpose comes, mostly in case of a creator or designer or programmer or whoever creating something and assigning a purpose for that thing to serve.

So is there a creator of life giving purpose to it?

But if the creator is a person and it is considered as 'alive'...then that means it didn't created life to begin with.

How can the creator of life be alive? If the creator was alive before creating life, then life already existed before creation.

That means 'if' life has a beginning it is from non living materials.

Thus purpose of life is pretty much derived from the functions of life which aren't really subjective either and can be studied in biology and stuff.

So in summary what is the function of life, what is the purpose it seves...what is life doing reproducing, evolving bla bla bla?

The answer is pretty obvious and observable.

Purpose of life is to....create a being intelligent enough to find the answer to the question: what is 6x7?