Getting to Philosophy
Open almost any article on the English Wikipedia and click the first link in the main text. Then do the same on the next article, and the next. If you keep going, you will very likely end up at the article on Philosophy. This curious pattern is known as Getting to Philosophy.
The rules
- Start on any article.
- Click the first link in the main body text, skipping links in parentheses and in italics. Ignore the infobox, notes at the top and pronunciation guides.
- Repeat on each new article until you reach Philosophy, or until you find yourself going round in a loop.
The rule about parentheses matters. Without it, many chains would wander off to pronunciation guides, dates or the article about a language, instead of the subject itself.
Why it works
Wikipedia articles usually begin by saying what kind of thing their subject is. The article on a violin starts with the kind of instrument it is, that article starts with what a musical instrument is, and so on. Each first link tends to point to a broader, more general idea. Follow that chain far enough and you reach the most general ideas of all, such as knowledge, reasoning, existence and finally philosophy.
The pattern became widely known in 2011, when the webcomic xkcd mentioned it, and Wikipedia's own editors have discussed it for years. It is not a law: articles are edited every day, so a chain that works today may lead elsewhere tomorrow, and some chains get stuck in a loop between two articles. Other language editions of Wikipedia start their articles differently, so the end point there can be different too.
Try it yourself
- Pick something far from philosophy, like a football club, a breakfast food or a pop album, and count how many clicks it takes.
- Race a friend from two different starts and see whose chain is shorter.
- Look for chains that end in a loop instead. They are rarer than you might think.
Road to Philosophy in Hyperhop
Hyperhop turns the idea into a game mode on iPhone. In Road to Philosophy every round ends at Philosophy, but you are free to follow any link, not only the first one. Choose where you start, any article you like, or let the game pick one for you, and try to climb from the particular to the general in as few links as possible.