A long post; for a very long term plan :)
The following is a quote from the "Meaning of Life" by John Walker[1]
<quote>
The meaning of life is to live. To live is to expand the scope of life
itself, by replicating, by adapting, by modifying the environment, and
by evolving into other forms of life. We are the inheritors of more
than three billion years of ceaseless global molecular
experimentation, of competition among individuals and species, of a
relentless expansion of life into new environments and emergence of
new capabilities. How can we have the arrogance to believe, so
recently evolved ourselves to a stage that we can truly be said to
think, that we are unique--that no other intelligent beings see our
Sun as a star in their sky and, as arrogantly, consider themselves
unique? ...
"If they existed, they would be here", says Fermi. So where are they?
Nowhere in evidence. Intelligent beings with technologies millions of
years beyond our own, spread to the far ends of the galaxy, should not
be difficult to detect. We already possess the means to detect even
primitive technological civilisations like our own at a distance of
hundreds of light years.
If they existed, they--the first intelligent species to expand outward
among the stars--would be here. And since we look around and see
nobody but ourselves, then it is only reasonable to conclude, "We are
here, so we are them." We evolved here and we have not yet begun to
sow the seeds of life among the stars, but surely we will. Three
billion years ago, one planet, the Home Planet, came to life. Slowly
life spread across the Home Planet, gaining complexity and diversity
until it could think of going yet further.
In a short time on the cosmic scale, beings throughout the galaxy will
gaze at the friendly stars in their skies. They will look upward and
see, not a hostile and lifeless galaxy, but one teeming with life--the
legacy of the planet that came to life and then brought life to a
galaxy. They will not be human, no more than we are australopithecus
or fish or bacteria, yet they, in their number and diversity trillions
of times beyond the scope of life on Earth, will be our children,
heritors of our coming to understand the meaning of life and the rĂ´le
humans are to play in its grand pageant.
I am sure there are many others who have the same views as above, but
now, with free software, super computers, globalisation and our other
resources, it is time to think seriously on the above lines.
Cosmology is central to Indian traditions and many of our Gods are
also symbols for the whole Cosmos, and having a "darshan/view" of the
whole Cosmos is often the highest blessing. To have a rich experience
of the cosmos is very fundamental to probably many cultures, and a
very worthwhile goal.
We do not seriously get started until the vision enters into the
preambles of the constitutions of many key countries of the world,
starting with US, Russia, China, UK, France, Germany, Brazil, India,
etc. and the majority of the people at a global scale.
Many of the present day constitutions have very narrower objectives:
For eg, the US Constition begins this way:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more
perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and
secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America"
These are certainly very ambitious goals for the 1780's but, today,
they could be taken for granted, and need to be updated to setting
goals that make the meaning of life more relevant. That would result
in resources being spent on a global scale to build better space ships
instead of wasting them on F-16's and a lot of other crap. The same
equally applies to India: we too have a constitution that extolls
justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. Now that the world has
become a single global village, means to unify all the ambitious goals
should take us closer to the true meaning of life.
The free software movement, is a truly global organisation, that has
already made life a lot more easier with free software, and is
probably the only movement that could firmly lead in giving life more
meaning, so that the tools that have been produced are productively
and constructively used with optimum efficiency towards achieving the
highest goal that we could ever dream and achieve.
If the leader of the free software movement does get to lead US,
probably "software patents" would be the first debris in this long
quest for space :)
Regards,
Ramanraj.
[1] The Home Planet Help file, available at
http://fourmilab.ch
HPLANET.HLP is a Windows help file, but it could be viewed using
winhelpcgi=>http://www.herdsoft.com/ftp/winhelpcgi_1.0rc3-1.tar.gz
that is available at
http://www.herdsoft.com/ftp/downloads.html