Admittingly, I suppose that Star Trek Voyager is not usually referred to when talking about Christian leadership.

USS Voyager, commanded by the strong-willed Captain Kathryn Janeway, becomes trapped on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy, and with no other options left to them, embarks on a 70-year journey home. Their journey becomes filled with dangers, discoveries, and both conflict and personal growth. Step by step, they put the light-years behind them as they travel ever closer to their destination, Earth, in – quite literally – the journey of their life.

I think it parallels, in many ways, the kind of pilgrimage that we as Christians face on this earth, nowhere better exemplified than in John Bunyan’s famous book “Pilgrim’s Progress”. Our life is one of conflict, danger, and with many trials and temptations to face, before we ultimately, one day, look towards the final destination of our life: our Heavenly home, where friends and family await. In the meantime we grow – adapt, as Seven of Nine would say – in our changing environment and become stronger, wiser – and more humble.

My hero in all this is Captain Janeway. Never once flinching, never hesitating – though personally haunted by past decisions, future uncertainty, responsibility for the crew, and the burden of command – she leads the starship though these dark, dangerous waters. She is the embodiment of a Federation Starship Captain. This is her ship, her crew; and whether she makes right or wrong decisions, it is hers to make. An investigative scientist at heart, she rarely misses an opportunity for research; but when the role of the scientist conflicts with that of the captain, the captain will crush the opposition (internal or external) by sheer dominant will.

I find it amazing how a fictional character can become so real. I wonder if perhaps both I and the actor, Kate Mulgrew, are standing and looking at this character and pondering what an effect she’s had on perhaps both of us. Even if I myself find myself perhaps at the comparative rank of sergeant in the grand scheme of things, I still admire the position of captain. I know there is no way that I could handle that job if suddenly put there; I have neither the experience, nor the commanding personality or character to go with it… But I can dream about it.

Until further notice, Captain Janeway is my personal hero. Thanks, Kate, for bringing her to life.

I love the Matrix movies. I know some people feel differently; but to me, they present a panoramic view over our entire mankind. To me, they provide a deep insight in what a simulated world must look like. It combines elements of machine-like mathematical purity with the chaotic and emotional mankind; the unification of which is not unlike the deep and paradoxical notions of quantum physics.

The Matrix movies make a deep and fundamental statement about free will. Throughout history, philosophers argue whether mankind really has a free will; if we can at any moment choose between different choices (no regard taken to whether we actually use that choice or not in practice), or if the universe is completely deterministic. If mathematical rules govern the movement of celestial bodies, keep the planets orbiting in perfect trajectories – so that it is possible to determine the exact location of Jupiter 10000 years from now – are there similar rules that govern our behavior? The mere fact that we seem to make logical decisions may not mean that the decision was not already decided beforehand, without our knowledge. Spoken mathematically, if S and S’ represent two different states, is the transition t(S, S’) between those two states governed by rules to the extent that it is possible – given all relevant circumstances – to determine exactly what I will do thirty years from now?

It only gets more difficult if we take into account such statements that God may know exactly who gets saved in the end and who doesn’t. Isn’t that deterministic? Is it predetermined – and how can God cast judgement if so – or is it foreseen? If it is possible to look at a world without being bound by time, so the entire history of man is laid out in full view, do we still have a free will?

I belong to the school that says, yes, we do. And I think the advances in quantum theory and chaos theory may one day prove me right. Isaac Asimov’s books about the Foundation offers an interesting view on the topic through its “psychohistory” – that it’s possible to determine a society’s development through sufficiently well-defined principles and equations, but that it’s also impossible to predict the decisions of a single individual (I love the notion of “achaotic equations”). It corresponds nicely with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: That it’s impossible to know both the exact position and momentum of a particle at the same time. I believe there is a similar notion (whether it can in fact be proved or not is an exercise I happily leave to the reader) with human beings: While there are a certain type of “Newtonian” laws (such as economics) that predict how our society is progressing, it is also impossible to determine exactly the future of a single individual. Once again, spoken mathematically, it is impossible to derive a future state S’ exactly from a given present state S and a transition function t because of the inherent fundamental uncertainty properties of t itself.

The Matrix movies seem to make even a further suggestion: That we human beings crave that uncertainty, that we cannot function without it. That mankind in a fully deterministic universe would not only fail to accept the given world but even reject it. Nowhere is this more interestingly explained than in the final fight scene in Matrix Revolutions between the two nearly omnipotent characters Neo and Agent Smith:

Agent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you’re fighting for something? For more that your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

Neo: Because I choose to.

Even the Architect, the program that created the Matrix world itself, acknowledges: “The problem, as you so adequately put it, is choice.”

Time travel does not make things easier, as demonstrated in another movie, Twelve Monkeys, which demonstrates the Novikov self-consistency principle: Stating that “if an event exists that would give rise to a paradox, or to any ‘change’ to the past whatsoever, then the probability of that event is zero” (quote from Wikipedia).

If one were to look at the world without time, then, where every choice has “already been made” in a sense, doesn’t that make the universe deterministic? Is there still free will, if everything has already been settled and determined? Well, put mathematically, it may still turn out to be impossible to formulate a function t(S, S’) for a single individual. The fact that the two states S and S’ have already taken place, may turn out to be a mere coincidence.

Isaac Asimov is one of the most well-known science fiction authors ever. His great epic novels about robots and the development of the human race towards galactic empires are, to a genuine science fiction connaisseur, a definite must read.

In his books, he tells the story of robots, both humaniform and robotic in appearance. These robots have three simple laws built into them: (I) A robot must not injure a human being, or by inaction, allow a human being to be harmed; (II) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where those orders would conflict with the First Law; (III) A robot must protect its existence as long as this does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Of course, people all over have derived their own works from this; science fiction authors other than Asimov have written their own tales, and the most popular spin-off – the movie “I, Robot” – took very liberal steps in interpreting these laws: A computer developed its own understanding of these laws: Humans are evil, and they will themselves inflict harm on each other, and the only option is to imprison human beings and prevent them from harming each other.

This is as far from the original intentions of Asimov’s laws as one could possibly come.

The robots from Asimov’s universe are very different. My favorites among them are R. Giskard and R. Daneel, two robots that themselves discuss the very meaning and essence of these laws. As they – and all such robots – have been designed, it is impossible for them to harm a human being. The very thought of it pains them, and hurts their positronic pathways. The laws expressed above are only generalizations of the actual rules and concepts laid down in them, which allows them to very carefully judge any situation according to the three laws and determine the correct action.

In many derivative works, for instance, robots disobey human beings, often with some abstruse reference to the First Law: “If I obeyed you, then Dr. So-So would be harmed because his reputation would suffer, therefore I cannot obey you.” This behavior, to Asimov, is impossible. R. Daneel, for instance, would immediately have realized the importance of the Second Law – to always obey – and the First Law would probably be insignificant in comparison. The fact that someone some future day may have his reputation dented, is such a small thing in comparison with direct disobedience of a human being, that he never would have thought twice about it. These robots are not faithful merely to the letter, they are faithful to the spirit in which these laws were written.

In some other works, robots injure human beings directly, although maybe not physically. In one book, a robot held a robotics doctor prisoner, because of the perceived harm to another person’s reputation if she were let loose. Had R. Giskard acted in such a way, the sheer effort of physically restraining and harming another person by keeping her prisoner would have burnt out his positronic brain forever and rendered him totally inoperable.

Some wise man wrote a long time ago, “love is the fulfillment of the law; for love does no harm to its neighbor”. Neither do robots.

What, then, is love? Is love a feeling, a sensing of good will towards another human being? Can it possibly also be a verb – that love implies action and not just feeling? For if love is the purpose, the intent and the consequential action of continually avoiding to injure someone, then there is no finer instrument of this love than one of Asimov’s robots: They obey without hesitation, they unquestioningly help and support, they toil endlessly without reward, they always protect and keep safe; because burnt into their minds are the words: “Must not cause you harm.”

His robots treasure understanding humans, because it allows them to understand better what harms them and how to avoid it. They debate among each other how to most faithfully adhere to the three laws in any given situation, so that harm may be minimized while yet not sacrificing obedience or self-preservation.

For a cursory glance at these three laws suggest that they, if obeyed to the letter, could be exploited and used to set up strange and unusual scenarios where robots may be induced to disobey or cause harm. And in the name of cheap thrill, science fiction authors sometimes do. But Isaac Asimov’s robots do not: They are much too sensitive for that.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud … it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Cor 13:4, 5, 7)