Q:
What does the saying “nothing matters in the grand scheme of things” mean to you?
Is this a nihilistic approach to life?
Thoughts?
A:
Seems pretty nihilistic to me.
You could think of it relative to history. How many atrocities existed in the past? How many murders and rapes? How many abusive marriages? How many failed dreams? How many lost children? How many chronic sufferers?
All of these ancient experiences, do they matter to us in the here and now? Do we feel the weight of them? They mattered greatly in the moment they existed, but once they pass... they seem to matter less and less... at least to us in our ignorance.
But our ignorance doesn't subtract their meaning. A universe with 100,000,000 lives that suffer is better than a universe with 999,999,999,999,999,999 lives that suffer. An alternate universe with no Holocaust is better than our universe (all else being equal). Perhaps the negative meaning of the Holocaust doesn't exist in the year 5555 AD nor in the year 5555 BC. But the negative meaning of the Holocaust definitely exists in the year 1945 AD. If we could subtract all of the suffering in the year 1945 from our universe, our universe would be better - even if we are in the year 2024 and can't fully feel the change. This is due to the comparability of universes in terms of quantities of suffering. The ability to generate different types of universes MATTERS.
What is passed on to future generation matters. Those who invented technologies - those things matter to us in the here and now. Those who spread knowledge. Those who built a better culture. We, and all those that come after us, get to inherit the good things given to us by our forbears. Those things matter to all periods of time they can affect into the future.
Put perhaps we will never know how much those ancient atrocities actually mattered. What if a Jew killed by the Nazi's would have cured cancer? If we had full knowledge of all possible worlds, perhaps everything would matter. Perhaps "not mattering in the long run" is an illusion generated by our ignorance of causal relationships. And “nothing matters in the grand scheme of things” is just wrong by virtue of the comparability of possible universes.