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Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

ryanelmquist.com

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Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#51

Post by sophacles »

sili wrote: post #46
camtarn wrote: post #5

Hah. The hypothesis is false, but the script already has that covered via loop detection... nice :) panhard Auverland Panhard uh oh... found a loop panhard -> auverland -> panhard. So far the longest trail I've found, at 25 steps, was from 'ED209' via pottery, through minerals, states of matter, knowledge, finite sets, mathematics... that's one heck of a wikitrail. [edit] Scratch that, 'Horst link' is longer via one…

If it finds a loop, can't it go and explore other paths?

Please spend 38.9 seconds trying to understand the very very very simple algorithm that says: Follow the first link that... It doesn't say there are alternate choices. If you went with a different link than the first, it would no longer be the first.

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#52

Post by adsr »

iopuy wrote: post #15
camtarn wrote: post #5

Hah. The hypothesis is false, but the script already has that covered via loop detection... nice :) panhard Auverland Panhard uh oh... found a loop panhard -> auverland -> panhard. So far the longest trail I've found, at 25 steps, was from 'ED209' via pottery, through minerals, states of matter, knowledge, finite sets, mathematics... that's one heck of a wikitrail. [edit] Scratch that, 'Horst link' is longer via one…

30 for "Howard Hughes" uh oh... found a loop mathematics -> quantity -> property_(philosophy) -> modern_philosophy -> western_europe -> europe -> continent -> landmass -> landform -> earth_sciences -> science -> knowledge -> fact -> information -> finite_set -> mathematics.

Makes sense for mathematics to be a loop since it's a self contained system.

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#54

Post by dkersten »

malvim wrote: post #40
Fargren wrote: post #26

You don't reach Philosophy from Philosophy.

Hey, I did! Did it using the software and then checked wikipedia by hand: Philosophy -> Existence -> Sense -> Organism -> Biology -> Natural_science -> Science -> Knowledge -> Fact -> Information -> Finite_set -> Mathematics -> Quantity -> Property_(philosophy) -> Modern_philosophy -> Philosophy 15 steps to philosophy

The "Quantity" article did not contain the link to Property_(philosophy) before and it was added purely for the sake of this game. See the talk page for more details.

Personally, I think its sad that people are editing wikipedia purely for the sake of making games work out.

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#56

Post by camtarn »

mbubb wrote: post #44

Fun Interesting that the first three i tried took about 17 hops and got funnelled through the "Life" entry. corndog sensimilia halitosis This took a few less hops and stayed in 'techne': voip. Would love to see these searches graphed. Years ago - one of my favorite sites was Everything2 (still up) - it was run on the slashdot engine. The fun of it was to follow the associated links at the bottom of the entry to see w…

E2 was wonderful for links teleporting you off into completely unrelated and equally fascinating subjects - I lost many an evening in that manner :)

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#58

Post by gnoupi »

assemble wrote: post #24
jrockway wrote: post #16

Ironically, it doesn't work from "Spark Plug".

Strange, it did for me yesterday. Edit: Modern Philosophy seems to be missing the link to Philosophy, which should be there according to the edit history ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Modern_philosophy&... ).

Apparently some kid was having fun vandalizing the page to break this. The page is semi-protected now, so it should be ok from now on.

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#59

Post by kd0amg »

iopuy wrote: post #15
camtarn wrote: post #5

Hah. The hypothesis is false, but the script already has that covered via loop detection... nice :) panhard Auverland Panhard uh oh... found a loop panhard -> auverland -> panhard. So far the longest trail I've found, at 25 steps, was from 'ED209' via pottery, through minerals, states of matter, knowledge, finite sets, mathematics... that's one heck of a wikitrail. [edit] Scratch that, 'Horst link' is longer via one…

30 for "Howard Hughes" uh oh... found a loop mathematics -> quantity -> property_(philosophy) -> modern_philosophy -> western_europe -> europe -> continent -> landmass -> landform -> earth_sciences -> science -> knowledge -> fact -> information -> finite_set -> mathematics.

modern_philosophy -> western_europe

Looks like "philosophy" is the first link on the "Modern philosophy" page (and was last week when I first tried this).

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Modern_philosophy&...

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#60

Post by ceejayoz »

kd0amg wrote: post #59
iopuy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 for "Howard Hughes" uh oh... found a loop mathematics -> quantity -> property_(philosophy) -> modern_philosophy -> western_europe -> europe -> continent -> landmass -> landform -> earth_sciences -> science -> knowledge -> fact -> information -> finite_set -> mathematics.

modern_philosophy -> western_europe Looks like "philosophy" is the first link on the "Modern philosophy" page (and was last week when I first tried this). http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Modern_philosophy&...

I wonder how many Wikipedia edits this week are going to be to undo loops.
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