My use of life (as a general principle) as adaptation is the opposite of "survival instinct" (in the individual).

As you note, a (non-self-aware) organism is incapable of formulating such a goal - there is only pain avoidance and pleasure approach (pick your terms - EVERY organism has a means of apprehending and responding to its environment).

It is LIFE that adapts. The individual (organism, species, etc) is just . . . a tool and if one tool is not up to the job (of adapting to its EVER (usually slow) changing environment) another is "selected" (by that environment) until eventually (one might assume :-), the perfect adaptation engine is produced.

In the same manner the big bang eventually "produced" hydrogen (and the other elements, and then molecules, and then ...) - everything that can be tried/combined is tried until only that which works - given the true nature of the universe -  falls out (survives to tell the tale).

It is hard to talk intelligently about such things without using terms that SEEM like anthropomorphizations :-) I am not sure the "big bang" is capable of "trying" to do anything but it is easier than saying "shit was all bent, feld, spindled, shaken, stirred, mutilated and pressed together until certain stuff stuck together better than other stuff" :-)