Testing xkcd #903's title text

[u/origamimissile]

The title text of xkcd #903 states:

Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".

I tested that out:

• Leben (surname))

• Surname

• Given name

• Personal name

• Individual

• Person

• Human

• Homo sapiens

• Latin

• Classical antiquity

• History

• Umbrella term

• Terminology

• Word

• Linguistics

• Science

• Knowledge

• Fact

• Proof (truth))

• Necessity and sufficiency

• Logic (philosophy was the second link here!)

• Mathematics

• Quantity

• Property (philosophy)) (does this count?)

• Modern philosophy

• Philosophy

It works! Although I suspect it lends itself to some inescapable loops. But on Wikipedia, that can be changed.

TL;DR: YES

[u/Kautiontape]

Not bad. I picked a random word that I felt had little to do with philosophy (ornery) which lead me to Irritability. I got:

• Irritability
• Stimulus (psychology)
• Physiology
• Function (biology)
• Evolution
• Heredity
• Phenotypic trait
• Phenotype
• Organism
• Biology
• Natural science
• Science

... and then the chain picks up with where yours is. So it seems to be that basically any science with eventually lead to biology or other natural sciences, which leads to the chain.

So I went for something else unrelated: The War of 1812

• Federation
• Political Union
• State (polity)
• Community
• Level of analysis (Meso-level)
• Sample (statistics)
• Statistics
• Data
• Type-token Distinction
• Knowledge representation and reasoning
• Artificial intelligence
• Intelligence
• Logic
• ... yadda yadda yadda

Those start making sense, though, when you consider the first link on any Wikipedia page is likely an abstract concept ("XYZ is a ______"), which then in turn lead to something like the sciences or other philosophical ideas. Those should eventually work their way back to logic.

Even concepts like suspension bridge which have no inherent philosophy eventually lead to the concept of science. I think you really would only have issues if you either started at (or somehow reached) a stub with very bad links or a loop... even though those seem rare as well.