The internet loves a strange experiment, and one TikTok video recently tried to answer an oddly satisfying question: do all Wikipedia pages eventually lead to “Philosophy?”

The original poster, Lukas (@lukasg007), explained, “If you click on the first link in a Wikipedia article and then you click on the first link in that article… And then you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it, it almost always leads to the article on philosophy.”

The rule was simple: keep clicking the first non-parenthetical, non-italicized link, and see where it goes.

While Wikipedia’s sprawling web of hyperlinks might seem chaotic, this TikTok video showed that there might be a surprising order hiding beneath it.

According to the Daily Dot’s own experiments, the article on KPop Demon Hunters was 14 clicks away from “Philosophy,” while Pug required 22. Along the way, those paths passed through concepts like Romance Languages, Abstraction, and Multicellular organisms before landing at the same destination.

The TikTok experiment that put Wikipedia to the test

Comedian @kylegilliscomedy decided to find out for himself. Stitching the original video, he said, “Alright, we’re gonna try that right now with the page for Waffle House.” What followed was a real-time tour through Wikipedia’s structure.

“Waffle House takes us to Restaurant Chain, which is actually a section of the chain stores. Chain stores take us to retail. Retail takes us to goods. Goods takes us to economics. […] Hypothesis takes us to explanation, that takes us to statements, which is the category of a proposition that takes us to philosophy of language, which takes us to philosophy. How’d I do?”

How far is your favorite topic from Philosophy?

Commenters were impressed, and many jumped into the thread to share their own examples. Some people tested the rule on their favorite pop culture topics, while others started from random everyday items. Most eventually arrived at “Philosophy,” though a few found themselves caught in loops.

Even Wikipedia’s official account joined in, asking, “Has anyone else tried this?”

One commenter wrote, “If you start at the wiki for the Nissan 300ZX, you get stuck in a loop between motor vehicle and automobile; if you break the loop by picking the second hyperlink, you end up at philosophy.”

Another added, “Ok, I had to do Kevin Bacon. Bacon > Leading Man > actor > theater > performing arts > arts > human > primates > order > Latin > classical language > language > communication > information > abstract concept > rules > premises > proposition > philosophy of language > philosophy! Philosophy is 20 degrees from Kevin Bacon!”

Someone else joked, “from ‘beef stroganoff’ to ‘philosophy’ in 13 steps😆.” And when one curious TikToker asked, “How long does it take to get to philosophy if you start at philosophy?” another replied simply, “21.”

As one commenter neatly put it, “It demonstrates how philosophy foundationalizes all things. Reminds me how if you keep asking ‘why?’ you always eventually get to philosophy.”

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The post “Foundationalizes all things”: Does every Wikipedia link lead back to the Philosophy page? appeared first on The Daily Dot.

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