In this thread, I'll try to explain why I started this project, and my personal view of it. You are encouraged to help me by telling me what is wrong in what I say, how what I plan can be improved, or such ...
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Well, I started to think about this a very long time ago, when I was around 10 years old.
I new the living was really powerful, robust, efficient, economic and non-pollutant.
I already imagined at that time that it would be wonderful if we could replace most of our machines by human-made living creatures. But I was conscious, of weakness that living being have and that machines does not have (such as catching diseases) ...
I've always been interested in most of the sciences, specially Biology and Computer Science.
Now that I'm an engineer, I realize that things are easier than they seems, but that problem are not where one expect them.
For a long time, I've been thinking that now that the human genome has been decoded, all that is left to get the ultimate medical understanding is to make a proteins simulator. In my country (France), lots of researches have been made in that field, and we are leading in that technology. Yet, it's only the beginning of it. But here, I don't want to just make another proteins-interactions-simulator. I want to do much more.
I want to make something really huge. Today lost people says that there will never be a computer powerful enough to run the program I want to make here, but I'm sure that by the year 2045, this computer will exists. (And this project is intended to work like "seti at home", else we would have to wait even longer).
But it will take a lot of time to make such a project, and I don't have that much time to spend on it, so we'll use these 35 years to make this project as properly as possible: our strengh is that we are OpenSource free collaborative software: we don't have deadlines, we are not in the "money" system and we'll be many.
Some will say that by making this project, we think ourselves as god. That designing a being from scratch is not ethical. That we may loose the control of our creation and bring huge disasters ...
I hear these people, but I disagree. I Humankind is currently bringing disaster by it's destruction of environment, global warming and such. We are already heading toward our own destruction, and I don't think we can do anything worse than that. The technology I want to create here is not only aimed at saving our planet, and at finding cures to our diseases, but also at allowing the growth of Humankind in a safer and better way.
For now, I only want to create a simulator and a virtual development lab for living creatures created by humans. I'll be the first one to ask for extra-caution when trying to actually create them in the real world. But you know what? it's too late! Transgenic creatures are already surrounding you, and you even eat some of them every day!
My personal belief is that such genetically modified creatures should have been tested for at least 20 years in confined environment before being released in the nature, but it's too late: it has already been done.
So I hope you now understand what I want to do.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I intend to make an IDE for living creature design and simulation.
Like eclipse allows to make and run java programs (and much more), this "software" will allow it's user to write the genetic code of a being, to design the first cell of that being, and to define in what this first cell will be placed for it's development/life.
Once all of this will have been set up, the user will be able to simulate the life of the cell (creature) he created.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Why starting now something that we'll only be able to finish with a technology we'll only get in 30 years?
From the pace things are going on, if we wait 70 years, we can infer that they'll be fully engineered creatures, or creature as heavily genetically modified as they'll be able to replace some of the machines we are currently using.
But if we let thing go, in the capitalist world in which we are living, things could be made as bad as they were for transgenic soybean or corn. The market asks for "unfinished" products to be released.
By making this project, I intend to create a way to fully simulate the life of a being, and thus, to find how its existence could be harmful for other beings. If we had had this tool before transgenic corn was made, we could have known beforehand that it killed bees, and thus we could have forbidden it. But now, it's too late ...
This tool will not change the fact that human will create artificial creatures, but it will help us to make better and safer artificial creatures.
All people on this site knows the superior quality of open source free software. I want that a software with such stakes for Humankind to benefit of the quality of open source free software. I don't want such a software to be made in a rush, with lots of malfunctions by a company that does not really care about it.
I also want this software to be ready and bug-free by the time we'll be able to make fully artificial creatures with DNA code written entirely by humans!
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
In this thread, I'll try to explain why I started this project, and my personal view of it. You are encouraged to help me by telling me what is wrong in what I say, how what I plan can be improved, or such ...
Well, I started to think about this a very long time ago, when I was around 10 years old.
I new the living was really powerful, robust, efficient, economic and non-pollutant.
I already imagined at that time that it would be wonderful if we could replace most of our machines by human-made living creatures. But I was conscious, of weakness that living being have and that machines does not have (such as catching diseases) ...
I've always been interested in most of the sciences, specially Biology and Computer Science.
Now that I'm an engineer, I realize that things are easier than they seems, but that problem are not where one expect them.
For a long time, I've been thinking that now that the human genome has been decoded, all that is left to get the ultimate medical understanding is to make a proteins simulator. In my country (France), lots of researches have been made in that field, and we are leading in that technology. Yet, it's only the beginning of it. But here, I don't want to just make another proteins-interactions-simulator. I want to do much more.
I want to make something really huge. Today lost people says that there will never be a computer powerful enough to run the program I want to make here, but I'm sure that by the year 2045, this computer will exists. (And this project is intended to work like "seti at home", else we would have to wait even longer).
But it will take a lot of time to make such a project, and I don't have that much time to spend on it, so we'll use these 35 years to make this project as properly as possible: our strengh is that we are OpenSource free collaborative software: we don't have deadlines, we are not in the "money" system and we'll be many.
Some will say that by making this project, we think ourselves as god. That designing a being from scratch is not ethical. That we may loose the control of our creation and bring huge disasters ...
I hear these people, but I disagree. I Humankind is currently bringing disaster by it's destruction of environment, global warming and such. We are already heading toward our own destruction, and I don't think we can do anything worse than that. The technology I want to create here is not only aimed at saving our planet, and at finding cures to our diseases, but also at allowing the growth of Humankind in a safer and better way.
For now, I only want to create a simulator and a virtual development lab for living creatures created by humans. I'll be the first one to ask for extra-caution when trying to actually create them in the real world. But you know what? it's too late! Transgenic creatures are already surrounding you, and you even eat some of them every day!
My personal belief is that such genetically modified creatures should have been tested for at least 20 years in confined environment before being released in the nature, but it's too late: it has already been done.
So I hope you now understand what I want to do.
The product I intend to make.
I intend to make an IDE for living creature design and simulation.
Like eclipse allows to make and run java programs (and much more), this "software" will allow it's user to write the genetic code of a being, to design the first cell of that being, and to define in what this first cell will be placed for it's development/life.
Once all of this will have been set up, the user will be able to simulate the life of the cell (creature) he created.
Why starting now something that we'll only be able to finish with a technology we'll only get in 30 years?
From the pace things are going on, if we wait 70 years, we can infer that they'll be fully engineered creatures, or creature as heavily genetically modified as they'll be able to replace some of the machines we are currently using.
But if we let thing go, in the capitalist world in which we are living, things could be made as bad as they were for transgenic soybean or corn. The market asks for "unfinished" products to be released.
By making this project, I intend to create a way to fully simulate the life of a being, and thus, to find how its existence could be harmful for other beings. If we had had this tool before transgenic corn was made, we could have known beforehand that it killed bees, and thus we could have forbidden it. But now, it's too late ...
This tool will not change the fact that human will create artificial creatures, but it will help us to make better and safer artificial creatures.
All people on this site knows the superior quality of open source free software. I want that a software with such stakes for Humankind to benefit of the quality of open source free software. I don't want such a software to be made in a rush, with lots of malfunctions by a company that does not really care about it.
I also want this software to be ready and bug-free by the time we'll be able to make fully artificial creatures with DNA code written entirely by humans!