Wikipedia is a source of knowledge that we are all intimately familiar with- whether it’s a matter of frantically cramming for a final exam or endlessly falling down a rabbit hole of fact for hours at a time. But did you know there’s a hidden law that connects all of the seemingly endless pages of the online encyclopedia? Welcome to the rule of “getting to philosophy”.
TikTok user @depthsofwikipedia made a viral post onto the video sharing website only earlier this week highlighting this little-known tidbit.
@depthsofwikipedia getting to philosophy from dishwasher salmon by clicking the first links #learnontiktok #tiktokpartner
♬ Lobby Music (Original Soundtrack) – Kahoot!
This thread is said to work for 97% of the over 6 million pages on Wikipedia. In addition to this, it’s expected that this success rate only continues to grow with an increase of 2.5% in recent years.
While this phenomenon is still little-known, it has been observed as early as 2008 for the first time.
How to test this for yourself
If you’re interested in putting this theory to the test, the procedure is incredibly simple; and it starts with choosing the strangest and most niche Wikipedia article you can find.
Once you’re comfortably situated on the page, start clicking the first blue hyperlink on every following page. This will draw you into a rabbit hole of increasingly vague and philsophical concepts. From here, if the rule is to be believed, you’re almost guaranteed to end up at the page for Philosophy.
There are a couple of rules:
- The link must be non-italicised and not in parentheses
- External and red (deleted) links should be ignored
The process can be considered finished when you either reach the philosophy page, or you find yourself at a dead end with no links or in an infinite loop.
Wikipedia may be an invaluable tool for educating the masses (even regarding some questionable gaps in public awareness) but it also houses a selection of strange secrets under its unassuming appearance. Really it just begs the question- what else is hiding buried in this interconnected web of pages?
