This would be some sort of emergent theory of "meaning", originating from individual organisms once they are sufficiently evolved to understand the concept, much like consciousness could perhaps arise. "Meaning" then starts out as the significance that an organism attaches to its own existence.
If there are biological reasons that make you believe your existence is important and you should live, then suicide would be a way of showing freedom from the restraints?
You just came close to disproving your own point above by responding with this comment. You are what you are and the meaning you experience is part of that- part of you.
In regards to emergence, the dominant view of consciousness in physics and philosophy and neuroscience alike is that the first person "subjective" perspective of reality is the inherent intrinsic perspective of physical matter and not an emergent phenomenon (unlike say self-awareness or intelligence)- ie. panpsychism.
Anyway, under this paradigm meaning is nothing more or less than a kind of experience and as such is necessarily subjective. More specifically "meaning" is an account of the type of experiences which are most significant from a subjective perspective.
If receiving meaning by fiat or dictum as if it were objective is something you subjectively find meaningful then that is your perspective and it says nothing of objective reality as such, other than that such subjective experiences are possible.
Well, my thoughts are always a work in progress. I'd say some religious ideas are incompatible with nihilism, like believing in an omnipotent God who has mapped out the future of the Universe for some kind of divine purpose. (I'm unclear exactly why an omnipotent God would bother to create a Universe when he already knows exactly what will happen in it, but whatever).
If you reduce "meaning" to anything that somebody thinks is worth doing (instead of just lying in bed until they die of dehydration), then it's not really possible to be a nihilist, except for those few days before you die of dehydration, unless somebody is keeping you alive (you wouldn't care, naturally).
