27 votes

Repeatedly clicking the first link on Wikipedia ends up at "Philosophy" 97% of the time

9 comments

  1. [4]
    hamstergeddon
    Link
    Interesting! I clicked one of the random pages on the home page and this is the path it took (21 links total): Expo 2020 Arabic Semitic Languages Afroasiatic Languages Language Family...

    Interesting! I clicked one of the random pages on the home page and this is the path it took (21 links total):

    Expo 2020
    Arabic
    Semitic Languages
    Afroasiatic Languages
    Language Family
    Communication
    Academic discipline
    Knowledge
    Fact
    Experience
    Consciousness
    Sentience
    Emotion
    Mental State
    Mind
    Thought
    Idea
    Abstraction
    Rule of inference
    Philosophy of logic
    Philosophy

    What I find interesting is that it only took 7 clicks to get to something somewhat close to Philosophy (Academic discipline), but twice as many to go from there to Philosophy itself.

    edit- also check out this site from the wiki page's references -- https://www.xefer.com/wikipedia Shows a really neat tree diagram of the path taken. It'll show connecting branches between terms to show common paths taken to Philosophy.

    9 votes
    1. TheRtRevKaiser
      Link Parent
      This is really interesting. I tried the same thing with today's featured article and it followed a very similar path as your article. Here was my route: Solo Man Subspecies Taxonomy (biology)...

      This is really interesting. I tried the same thing with today's featured article and it followed a very similar path as your article. Here was my route:

      Solo Man
      Subspecies
      Taxonomy (biology)
      Biology
      Science
      Latin
      Classical Language
      Language
      Communication ##from here on out, my path is exactly the same as yours##
      Academic Discipline
      Knowledge
      Fact
      Experience
      Consciousness
      Sentience
      Emotion
      Mental State
      Mind
      Thought
      Idea
      Abstraction
      Rule of inference
      Philosophy of logic
      Philosophy

      I'm thinking that probably what is happening is that for a lot of pages the first link is going to be a to a language because the first thing in the article is an etymology of the title of the article. So once you get to a page with an etymology like that, it wont take long to go from the specific language to a language family to Communication, and once you hit communication you're guaranteed to hit philosophy.

      5 votes
    2. Fal
      Link Parent
      Also in the references is Six Degrees of Wikipedia which shows the shortest route between two wiki pages

      Also in the references is Six Degrees of Wikipedia which shows the shortest route between two wiki pages

      4 votes
    3. nothis
      Link Parent
      Interesting it took so long to get from "Fact" to "Philosophy".

      Interesting it took so long to get from "Fact" to "Philosophy".

      1 vote
  2. pArSeC
    (edited )
    Link
    I thought this was absolutely fascinating: Clicking on the first link in the main text of an English Wikipedia article, and then repeating the process for subsequent articles, will end up at the...

    I thought this was absolutely fascinating: Clicking on the first link in the main text of an English Wikipedia article, and then repeating the process for subsequent articles, will end up at the article for "Philosophy" 97% of the time.

    (Not sure of which tilde to file this under; I filed under ~humanities because of the connection to philosophy)

    Edit: I got this from a pretty good BBC documentary called "The Joy of Data" - which is mentioned in the Wikipedia article. It can be found on YouTube, but probably not "legit", so I won't link it.

    6 votes
  3. [2]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
  4. [2]
    0d_billie
    Link
    I've been wondering lately if there is the equivalent for other services. Like, if you shuffle Spotify for long enough, will everyone eventually get to the same song?

    I've been wondering lately if there is the equivalent for other services. Like, if you shuffle Spotify for long enough, will everyone eventually get to the same song?

    3 votes
    1. mat
      Link Parent
      I'm not sure but if it did happen it would probably be Mr Brightside by The Killers

      I'm not sure but if it did happen it would probably be Mr Brightside by The Killers

      5 votes
  5. Protected
    Link
    I remember learning about this from the alt text of this relevant xkcd.

    I remember learning about this from the alt text of this relevant xkcd.

    2 votes