Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop

wikiloopr.com

121–130 of 171 posts

Re: Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop

#121
post #39

From a mathematical perspective, this is actually not that surprising. Think of the act of clicking the first link in the Wikipedia article as a function that takes in the page you're on and outputs another page. If you call this function on itself over and over again (ie use the output of one step as in the input of the next step), you will eventually enter a loop. The proof of this is simple: there are only a finit…

Another way of thinking about it: There are N nodes that loop back to themselves. When starting at a given node, what are the odds that you'll never hit one of these N nodes? Additionally, we know that many of the N nodes are very general ones, like "truth", under which many topics roll up.

Re: Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop

#123

It's funny, but it's true that everything in life ultimately leads back to philosophy. As noted by XKCD, everything is based on something else: http://xkcd.com/435/ And I think after Maths on that should come Philosophy.

I agree. Thought that at the time. Was a philosophy student at the time too though.

Re: Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop

#125
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

totally agree. i hacked this together pretty quickly last night. definitely a lot of room for improvement. thanks for the feedback!

It looks like there is a bug where it doesn't fetch the correct page: http://wikiloopr.com/anime

fixed

Re: Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop

#126
post #110

ironically, starting at "strange loop" avoids the repetitive philosophical argument

That works because somebody is being funny, and created a self referential strange loop inside Wikipedia. That's a good find you found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loops

I have to admit guilt here :-) Nice that someone found it too. +1 for GEB.

Re: Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop

#128

The first word I tried — jeans — and it failed to make philosophy loop :) Apparently, any articles from generated list will fail too.

Jeans made the philosophy loop for me? http://i.imgur.com/rgMkh.png

Somehow there was Emotion/Psychology loop there. Now it goes even further, than yours image, the loop is Argument/Philosophy now. Clearly, wikipedia is changing or tool was enhanced :)

Re: Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah so thats why the degree is called Doctor of Philosophy?! Thanks for the enlightenment! I've wondered quite a lot of times why I'm a Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science, and not Doctor of Computer Science.

I get that this is tongue-in-cheek, but philosophy as in "Doctor of Philosophy" doesn't refer to the field of philosophy per se, but to the more general concept of "love of knowledge."

Not sure why you are getting down votes, but checking over Wikipedia confirms your comment

In the context of academic degrees, the term "philosophy" does not refer solely to the field of philosophy, but is used in a broader sense in accordance with its original Greek meaning, which is "love of wisdom". In most of Europe, all fields other than theology, law and medicine were traditionally known as philosophy. The doctorate of philosophy as it exists today originated as a doctorate in the liberal arts at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and was eventually adopted by United States universities, becoming common in large parts of the world in the 20th century.[1] In many countries, the doctorate of philosophy is still awarded only in the liberal arts, which is known as "philosophy" in continental Europe.

Re: Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop

#130
Guys :) This is always fun when it crops up - especially the musing on how deeply rooted the topic of philosophy is.

But please don't go editing articles to improve the loops or otherwise change them. Unless of course the change is beneficial to the article.

It's like going for a walk somewhere fascinating; enjoy the view, but leave nothing behind :)

Post reply on HN