Do all first links on Wikipedia lead to philosophy?

Project HN: Identify all non-confirming Wikipedia articles and edit them to fit the pattern.

Someone previously created a "steps to philosophy" site (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2587352" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2587352</a>), but it seems to have vanished.

Already been done 5 months ago at <a href="http://www.xefer.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.xefer.com/</a>

Seeing as we humans ceated Wikipedia perhaps in an effort to define and describe everything there is, the product ends up filtered through the lenses of it's creators and in doing so we inevitably end up defining what it is to be human. I dont believe we can understand or describe anything beyond what it is we are. Wikipedia is essentially the accumulation of the collective knowledge of it's creators so what else should we expect it to be outside of the definition of what it is to be man. The attempt to collect and master the understanding of everything is afterall a philosophic endeavor. Done babbling now lol.

I was about to to link to previous discussions of the same claim/question<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2592522" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2592522</a><p>But then I read the article... Very nice!

Then, can you get from Philosophy to Mornington Crescent?<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikington_Crescent" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikington_Crescent</a>

By the time I looked at this, the end path had changed, as "Fact" now leads to "Truth" instead of "Information". How long until someone intentionally manipulates the chain?

When the question came up on XKCD a little while ago the answer is "no there are several loops that don't loop through philosophy". On a more conceptual level what does it mean to lead to philosophy? First links on Wikipedia do not form a tree with philosophy as the root, after all philosophy has a first link that is not itself. So we are looking at a graph and attempting to determine if all random walks of the graph passes through point P.

Just tested it for the hell of it, started with "FireFighter", thought it was random... and 30 clicks later landed on Philosophy! Fun stuff.

What about other sites like www.conservapedia.com or www.rationalwiki.org?<p>I tried on conservapedia and kept winding up at Earth or stuck in a loop.

You can try it for yourself: <a href="http://blago.dachev.com/wikidrill" rel="nofollow">http://blago.dachev.com/wikidrill</a>

A lot of them do, but sometimes there are loops (Eg. Computer Science). If you make an exception, choosing the second link for example, then it will lead you to philosophy.

Related: <a href="http://TheWikiGame.com" rel="nofollow">http://TheWikiGame.com</a> (multiplayer game of connecting Wikipedia articles with different constraints)

It even worked when I tried "Stone Cold Steve Austin"...

But which of the twelve has the lowest average length? The article points to 'science', but how would the number of steps graph look then?

I found a few that didn't go to philosophy back when the comic came out. My favorite: Han Solo -&#62; Harrison Ford -&#62; Han Solo...

Why philosophy? If you keep clicking, you actually end up in a loop: Philosophy -&#62; Reason -&#62; Human nature -&#62; Thought -&#62; Consciousness -&#62; Mind -&#62; Panpsychism -&#62; Philosophy -&#62; ...<p>I'd say, of the above, "mind", "thought", and "reason" are pretty basic -- you cannot have philosophy without a mind, for one (though you can probably have a mind without philosophy).

Start: Wikipedia -&#62; free -&#62; artwork -&#62; Aesthetics -&#62; Philosophy. 4 clicks away.

Nope. You can get stuck in loops pretty easily.

Community -&#62; Living -&#62; Life -&#62; Physical body -&#62; Physics -&#62; Natural science -&#62; Science -&#62; Knowledge -&#62; Fact -&#62; Information -&#62; Sequence -&#62; Mathematics -&#62; Quantity -&#62; Property (philosophy) -&#62; Modern philosophy -&#62; Philosophy<p>It's kind of like zooming in on what it means means to be alive in this universe. The fact that it ends at Philosophy is profound glimpse into what it means to be a thinking entity in the universe.<p>If we ever meet Aliens from another part of the galaxy, they would no doubt form similar knowledge structures that would probably end up being exactly like this. Their Wikipedias would end at Philosophy as well.

Bob Dylan -&#62; 1960s in music -&#62; Popular music -&#62; Music genre -&#62; Genre -&#62; Literature -&#62; Art -&#62; Senses -&#62; Physiology -&#62; Science -&#62; Knowledge -&#62; Fact -&#62; Truth -&#62; Reality -&#62; Philosophy

the author doesn't capitalize his sentences. i didn't find it difficult to read and only noticed halfway through the article. supposedly, capitalized sentences are easier to read, so i wonder if i've been conditioned by the internet to find uncapitalized sentences easy to read as well. off-topic, but interesting.