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 rôle 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