Nihilism says nothing. “But we’re humans, and meaning is one of the most important questions of our lives!” you might say. The nihilistic answer of this question is inherently un-nihilist. We have answered the question of human meaning by saying nothing matters. True meaninglessness would not even ask the question, but nihilism has both raised and answered the question. Nihilism undoes itself. How can a philosophy say “there is no truth” and be true?

Nihilism says there is no meaning to anything, but this is a subtle anthropomorphizing the universe. Nihilists are imposing a human spectrum of meaning on the universe, but the universe has no concept of meaning. It doesn’t have any sense of things being meaningful or meaningless. It doesn’t just not care, it can’t not care. Nihilism only makes sense from a human perspective.

True meaninglessness would not even raise the question, but nihilism has both raised and answered the question. A nihilist would’ve fallen to Ganto’s ax.

If the left was meaninglessness and the right was meaningfulness, the universe would reject your spectrum if it could reject anything.

If you believe the question of “how much meaning is in the universe” needs an answer, and you still believe that answer is “none”, you have imposed your own meaning on the universe. You’re slipping into existentialism.

The world is meaningless and people carve out their own meaning inherently by existing. But for practicing nihilists, none of this matters :)

Like most religions, philosophies, or perspectives, it’s done best a la carte.