in the matrix the question of purpose crops up so many times. i believe that their is no purpose to life, life is a complex arangement of chemicals that has developed over millions of years; and is nothing but a fluke. therefore why would there be a purpose to life? and why is life so special; bacteria doesnt get the same respect as that of other more developed life, even though it is still living.

As in any other example of supposed preference to humankind (that is to say, historically speaking, white euro-american males), the root lies in the presupposition that somehow, we/they are more important than other life. Christianity is a similar self-supporting philosophy. Its all bullshit, as far as Im concerned.

There is no purpose, but there is reason.

The initial emergence of life from the primordial muck was a fluke of sorts, though I imagine it was simply a matter of time before something like developed. As for the characteristics of life, they are not a fluke. Every characteristic of every life form exists for one of three reasons:

1) The characteristic makes the organism more likely to have surving offspring, thus passing on the characteristic.

2) The characteristic is a by-product of a characteristic fitting #1. Whatever genetic mutation caused the #1 characteristic also caused something else, which did not have a negative impact strong enough to outweigh the benefits of the #1 characteristic.

3) The characteristic has no bearing on the likelihood of having surviving offspring. It's the result of a genetic mutation which was not removed because it did not have a negative effect on producing surviving offspring.

The closest thing to "purpose" for humankind is this:

We're good at existing, so we exist.

Purpose is subjective. You could say that a hammer's purpose is to pound nails. However, really it's just a piece of wood with some metal attached at the end, which can also be used to break someone's skull.

Let's take that one step further...

If the genetic code has intellegence, then its "purpose" seems to be to reproduce and spread

If it is to spread (a even we know that the sun will eventually die), then it must leave this planet

If it must leave this planet, then humans (right now, at least) are the only candidates able to achieve this "purpose"

Thus, the "purpose" of humanity is to evolve and conquer...