Why the kid is called Michael KARL POPPER

In a few previous threads, people have asked the significance of "the kid's" name being Michael Karl Popper. (we find out his name in "The Kid's story" in The Animatrix)

The significance is this: Karl Popper was a 20th century philosopher of science who developed the idea that science advances by the process of falsification -- to paraphrase, you can't ever prove anything right, but you can prove it wrong, and that only hypotheses capable of conflicting with observations are "scientific".

For more, do a Google search on Karl Popper. One useful site is "THe Karl Popper Web at http ://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw/ (I had to put a space after http because I can't post links).

So what does this have to do with The Matrix? Michael (the Kid) believed that the world was not real. He conducted the ultimate test of this hypothesis by letting go of the building and falling to the ground, apparently dying, but actually "waking up" to see Neo and Trinity. By this process he got himself out of the matrix (in the words of Trinity "self-substantiated"😉. This is why the Kid keeps saying "Neo you saved me" but Neo says "No kid, you saved yourself".

I don't know the significance of his first name being "Michael", but I think that Michael means "bringer of light".

interesting...good view BioLogos

In Hebrew, Michael means "Who is like God?"

>Jedi HDM: Thanks for the clarification of the name "Michael". I'll have to tell my friend "Mike" what his name really means! (he is the one who told me the "light" bit...😉).

So, what does "Who is like God" mean in terms of The Matrix???

well...he self-substantiated...which is something not even Neo was able to do...so, who is like God is a pretty good explaination of Michael.

what does "self-substantiated" mean? I was watching in the other day and don't understand exactly what it means.

Basically, it means that he freed himself from the matrix instead of someone else (like Morpheus and Co.) giving him a trace program and stuff. The way Popper did was through "apparent teen suicide"; he jumped off a building and believed Neo would pull him out.

that's a big risk. what if it didn't work? not kid, no open gate, and a crahed hammer. that's bad

Yes. Very bad. But he had faith in Neo (and, in my humble opinion, got very, very lucky). And hey, it worked for him.

I wonder if any other people were freed by self-substantiation?

as said in the begining, "to get the truth, you must risk everything", or something like that. there's no bigger risk than risking your life

Thank you very much BioLogos, I really knew nothing of this at all, but for me you really have cleared it up. Again many thanks.

I have learned SO much 😎 from everyone else on this forum - I'm glad to contribute my small part!

lol yea i learned a lot too..🙂

good stuff!

are there any other names from the films or animartix that havent been discussed yet?

oh yea lol

Thanks BioLogos i really impressed my mates with this.