wikipedia loves a certain Article

[Penguinhero]

its so creepy

1. Go to http://www.google.com and search for something

2. find a wikipedia article on it

3. click the first link (the blue text with an underline) that isn't in parentheses ( ) <--- these

4. Repeat step 3

5. keep repeating step 3

7. you will eventually end on philosophy

8. post your success here

[jamieadd]

cool, but it took a while from NASA. It would get close a few times but then end up on something completely random and would take another few minuets to get back to anything philosophical.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

From "Cardio" I got to it. Passed through Era's, technoledgy, then philophosy

[Omicron314]

Interesting. I tried Falcon Heavy, Thor, and Gliese 667. They all worked. I even tried getting from the first link on Philosophy to Philosophy. No such luck.

I wonder if there is a reason for this...?

[KasperVld]

Wikipedia even has an article on this phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy

And there are websites who crawl through Wikipedia automatically for this purpose, such as: http://wikiloopr.com/Chopin

[Moon Goddess]

Not working so quickly for me, on something I thought would.

lie -> truth - fact - proof - sufficient - logic - philosophy

[Sir_Tramalot]

I managed to get there from the Wiki page for KSP!

[6677]

I went from asia, to asia disambiguation and back into asia again, endless loop. Alternate was edit source, wont get me any further.

[6677]

ok, ignoring the disambiguation link I went though a long list of links and got to "First Principle" where the 2nd link is philosophy, but not the 1st. But I did reach it from the 1st.

Takes a long time but you can reach it from the article on wikipedia itself too

Edited August 31, 2013 by 6677

[lajoswinkler]

It's no wonder Wikipedia behaves like that. It's because of the way it is organized, and the fact philosophy is the backbone (historical or factual) of almost everything we know.

[6677]

AHAHAHAHA. It even works going from philosophy to philosophy

[swiftgates24]

I started on cows, but I ended up on a loop for the word "Latin" :/

EDIT: Wow, it was actually another Latin page and I ended up on Property (philosophy). Weird. It took about 5 minutes.

[6677]

Latin>ancient>history>umbrella term>Hpernym>Linguistics>Scientific>Knowledge>Information>Sequence>Mathematics>Quantity>Property>Modern Philosophy>Philosophy.

Only way to get back to latin is to inadvertently click an option in brackets (there was a rather large set of brackets on one page with latin in them)

[SolarLiner]

Reminded me of this game: http://thewikigame.com/

Here you start at a random page and have to get to another, but you play against others and have to do it in the fewest clicks possible and as quick as possible.

But hey look at this: Philosophy -> Reality -> Existence -> Definition -> Meaning (linguistics) -> Linguistics -> Science -> Knowledge -> Information -> Sequence -> Mathematics -> Quantity -> Property (philosophy) -> Philosophy

Edited August 31, 2013 by SolarLiner

[Diche Bach]

OMG Geeks with way too much time on their hands . . .

Marcus Aurelius - Roman Emperor - Roman State (Roman Empire disambiguation) - Republican (Roman Republic disambiguation) - ancient Roman civilization - civilization (yeah! castes, slavery, writing, war!!) - polities - state - centralized government - power - social science - academic disciplines - knowledge - information - sequence - mathematics - quantity - property (Philosophy) - modern philosophy - philosophy !

Phew! Lets try one more

Mongongo nut - Family (biology) - biological classification - scientific taxonomy - Discipline (academic) - academic areas of study - knowledge - information - sequence - mathematics - quantity - property (Philosophy) - modern philosophy - philosophy

I'm reminded here of a couple famous quotes by Kevin Warwick, cyborg professor:

“Shouldn’t I join the ranks of philosophers and merely make unsubstantiated claims about the wonders of human consciousness? Shouldn’t I stop trying to do some science and keep my head down? Indeed notâ€Â.[63]

“I feel that we are all philosophers, and that those who describe themselves as a ‘philosopher’ simply do not have a day job to go toâ€Â.[63]

Actually just for kicks, lets see how it works from HIS page

Kevin Warwick - British (United Kingdom disambig ..) - sovereign state - and yep, right back into the same loop as when starting from Marcus Aurelius.

I smell a conspiracy.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Diche Bach

[astropapi1]

I'm gonna crawl under a rock now.

Went from Potato to Philosophy.

[Mercy]

I'm pretty sure this works with every article.

[Diche Bach]

I'm pretty sure this works with every article.

Are you playing Capt Obvious or are you alluding to something more nefarious?

The OP's point was that this loop back to Philosophy seems to be true for each and every Article in Wikipedia.

Actually though, that makes me think of some additional tests with which to waste some time . . .

[Diche Bach]

Are you playing Capt Obvious or are you alluding to something more nefarious?

The OP's point was that this loop back to Philosophy seems to be true for each and every Article in Wikipedia.

Actually though, that makes me think of some additional tests with which to waste some time . . .

Article ->Wikipedia:What is an article? -> Encyclopedia -> Reference work -> Index (publishing) -> Back-of-the-book index -> Alphabet (ah now we're goners for sure . . .) -> Letter (alphabet) -> Grapheme -> Writing -> Communication -> Information -> Sequence . . . and yep, right back into the Philosphy "black hole"

Wikipedia -> Collaborative editing (wow, lots of unlinked text at the beginning of that one) -> Source code -> Computer science -> Science (oh yeah, right back into the loop once again . . .) -> Knowledge, etc., etc.

So, is this in any way intentional or just an emergent property?

It raises the question to me of: what is the MAXIMUM number of steps before one winds up back at Philosophy?

Edited August 31, 2013 by Diche Bach

[NGTOne]

I think it's an emergent property - philosophy is the "mother of the sciences", and incredibly broad. For a long time, science was referred to as "natural philosophy". Since Wikipedia deals primarily in factual things, which tend to have origins in the sciences, they naturally tend to drive back to philosophy. Likewise with "softer" things, like religion and works of fiction. Religion is on its own a type of philosophy, so no real problem there. Works of fiction take you through literature, which in turn goes eventually to philosophy.

The ancient Greeks viewed philosophy as the "base case" of all the sciences - maybe they were onto something?

As for the maximum number of steps, let's break it down from a mathematical point of view:

Theoretical maximum is the total number of articles for a given language wiki. Now, this is highly unlikely to ever occur, doubly so because of the number of stubs that don't link anywhere.

Theoretical minimum is one (an article that leads directly to philosophy). This is far more common than the above case.

Now, what has been discussed leads to an interesting conclusion - that, after a certain amount of time, the articles tend to "converge" down certain pathways, which lead inevitably to the article on philosophy, with articles of increasing breadth (greater abstractness) being more highly trafficked. This, in turn, implies that a tree-like structure, with philosophy as the root node, could be used to answer this question (but with the rather odd construction method of building the tree from the branches inward, rather than the other way around). The most distant branch, naturally, represents the article that requires the most steps to reach philosophy.

Now, I propose a different question:

Taking any of the wikilinks in a given article, which one would send us to philosophy the fastest (i.e. fewest clicks)? What would be the most efficient means of finding this shortest path?

Edited August 31, 2013 by NGTOne

[Galacticruler]

http://wikiloopr.com/Kerbal%20Space%20Program

Well that was not expected.

[Diche Bach]

I think it's an emergent property - philosophy is the "mother of the sciences", and incredibly broad. For a long time, science was referred to as "natural philosophy". Since Wikipedia deals primarily in factual things, which tend to have origins in the sciences, they naturally tend to drive back to philosophy. Likewise with "softer" things, like religion and works of fiction. Religion is on its own a type of philosophy, so no real problem there. Works of fiction take you through literature, which in turn goes eventually to philosophy.

The ancient Greeks viewed philosophy as the "base case" of all the sciences - maybe they were onto something?

As for the maximum number of steps, let's break it down from a mathematical point of view:

Theoretical maximum is the total number of articles for a given language wiki. Now, this is highly unlikely to ever occur, doubly so because of the number of stubs that don't link anywhere.

Theoretical minimum is one (an article that leads directly to philosophy). This is far more common than the above case.

Now, what has been discussed leads to an interesting conclusion - that, after a certain amount of time, the articles tend to "converge" down certain pathways, which lead inevitably to the article on philosophy, with articles of increasing breadth (greater abstractness) being more highly trafficked. This, in turn, implies that a tree-like structure, with philosophy as the root node, could be used to answer this question (but with the rather odd construction method of building the tree from the branches inward, rather than the other way around). The most distant branch, naturally, represents the article that requires the most steps to reach philosophy.

Now, I propose a different question:

Taking any of the wikilinks in a given article, which one would send us to philosophy the fastest (i.e. fewest clicks)? What would be the most efficient means of finding this shortest path?

I think this calls for an Indie-Go-Go fundraiser. This is an important empirical question that needs to be answered before it is "too late"!

Would $50,000 be enough to cover your part of the project? I'll settle for a $50,000 . . .

ADDIT:

http://wikiloopr.com/Kerbal%20Space%20Program

Well that was not expected.

What thugh!? . . . Did you just make that yourself!?

Edited August 31, 2013 by Diche Bach

[Diche Bach]

OMG I love this! Physics, Biology, virtually everything, including Philosophy are after all just a subfield of Linguistics!! I LOVE IT!

This is actually making me want to finish that Web Designer online certificate I've left fallow for so long.

[Bioman222]

It dosen't work from the page about the phenomenon, though, because you get in a loop with lifting hook and hoist.

[NGTOne]

I'd like to propose more formal definitions for both the general Wikipedia conjecture (that all pages are connected to Philosophy), and my own question.

The general Wikipedia conjecture:

You have a set of objects, n >= 2. Each object has at minimum 0 unidirecctional connections to other objects, and is allowed to have any number x of unique, unidirectional connections to other objects, so long as x <= n-1. You are given a list of the objects, and an ordered list of the connections that each object possesses. The conjecture states that a given target object (in the Wikipedia example, the article on philosophy) can be reached by constructing a series that follows only the first connection from every object it encounters.

The special Wikipedia problem (my own question):

You have the same set of objects, n >= 2. Each object has at minimum 0 unidirectional connections to other objects, and is allowed to have any number x of unique, unidirectional connections to other objects, so long as x <= n-1. You are given a list of the objects, and an ordered list of the connections that each object possesses. The problem is, find the shortest path from a given object to the target object, using any of the connections for a given object, without assuming any foreknowledge of the contents of the next object (i.e. your algorithm can only see what connections the current object and all previously seen ones have, but cannot see what connections the "next" object has, as though it were were a human undergoing "Wikipedia freefall").

Edited August 31, 2013 by NGTOne