There Must Be Some Kind Of Cosmic Truth In This
 

I tried this starting with six different random Wikipedia pages and eventually ended up at "Philosphy". It really does work!

I started with "Philosphy".

It doesn't work.

Why ignore a rhetorical:

Philosophy --> Reason --> Sense --> Physiology --> Organ (anatomy) --> Biology --> Natural Science --> Science --> Knowledge --> Fact --> Information --> Finite set --> Mathematics --> Quantity --> Property (philosophy) --> Modern Philosphy --> Philosophy

Random Page: Union General Hospital --> Hospital --> Health Care --> Disease --> Abnormal --> Abnormal Psychology --> Psychology --> Science --> Knowledge --> Facts --> Information --> Sequence --> Mathmatics --> Quantity --> Property --> Modern Philosophy --> Philosophy

So far the few I've tried have all gone through Science first on its way to Philosophy.

Which makes sense since Science is better.

Seems like a good final project for an undergrad recursive algorithms class. Starting at [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Contents/A%E2%80%93Z_index] this page, write a program to determine if there are any entries that do not lead to Philosophy. Give the optimal order of time complexity in Big-O notation.

Huh. I get:

Philosophy --> rational argument --> rationality --> reason --> rationality

Which makes a loop between reason and rationality.

Ps: JW - Did you get this from XKCD or somewhere else?

Hmm, Alex's path follows the letter of the law ["click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics"]. Moonliner's probably follow more the intent since, in that case, the parentheses are not of the technical sort that contain nothing but pronunciation, word origin, etc. that head many articles, but rather it's presented as part of the explanatory text that just happens to be parenthetical. Although, in that it just provides a synonym, it is very closely related to the kind of parenthetical the "not in parentheses" clause was meant to rule out.

Definite gray area.

I saw it on xkcd and tried it out as a lark. I was suprised that it actually worked.

I saw the meme floating around a few days ago, before the XKCD this morning.

Here's a related game (from BoingBoing)

Finding Jesus
1 - go to wikipedia
2 - click the random page link
3 - on that page, click a link that you think will get you as close to the page for Jesus as possible
4 - keeping track of your clicks, repeat step 3 until you FIND JESUS

Score 1 point for each page you visit, including Jesus. Lowest score wins. I'll start.

Internet In Algeria ---> Internet in Egypt ---> Middle East ---> Christianity ---> Jesus

5 points, nice!

How does Alex get to Reason? Are you all seeing something different from what I see?

"Rational Argument" IS a link to "Reason".

On the Reason page you're clicking "rationality", which is in parentheses. Alex is clicking "faculty" which is outside of the parentheses (and actually links to "sense")

And on reason the first link not italicized or in parenthesis is "faculty" which goes to Sense.

I just did this 10 times starting from random pages.

All ten times the route to Philosophy went through Mathematics. 9 out of the 10 times it went through Science on the way through Mathematics.

Fine.

Road.

Star Screen Award for Best Comedian
Bollywood
English
bookstore (bookselling)
publishing
literature
bible
Jesus

7 points.

I get:

Road --> Thoroughfare --> Highway --> Highway systems by country --> Geography --> Earth --> Planet --> Orbit --> Physics --> Natural Science --> Science --> Knowledge --> Facts --> Information --> Finite set --> Mathematics --> Quantity --> Property (philosophy) --> Modern Philosophy --> Philosophy

Is it cheating that I edited the Highway Systems page so that Highway was no longer the first link?

Let's see:

Cheating --> Audultery --> Extramarital sex --> marriage --> kinship --> Entity --> Existence --> Sense --> Physiology --> Organ (anatomy) --> Biology --> Natural Science --> Science --> see science chain.

Slovenia at the 2009 Mediterranean Games -> Italy -> Pope -> Jesus

4 points

I was just reading that there are people going in and editing articles to try and stop you from getting to Philosophy.

Actually you're going to have to go back to Highway and edit it so Road isn't the first link (you missed it, probably because it's a short word and your followed-link color made it blend with the other black text around it)