Our youngest Elder, the scholar Elder DZ, is WLBOTT’s conduit for all culture involving people under 65. He takes the pulse of the younger generation.
He recently describe an interesting property of Wikipedia – the Chain of Wisdom.
According to Elder G:
This phenomenon is actually well known among Wikipedia wanderers and is often called “Getting to Philosophy.” The rough rule is:
- Start on almost any Wikipedia article
- Click the first valid link in the main text
- Repeat
- Avoid parentheses, pronunciation guides, footnotes, etc.
- Eventually, many paths spiral into Philosophy
There is even a Wikipedia article about this:
The Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon, sometimes called the “Philosophy Game“, is the tendency that English Wikipedia articles’ first hyperlink, when clicked in a chain, will end in a loop at the article “Philosophy”. The concept was discovered by Wikipedian Mark J.
The phenomenon first received widespread attention from a “fun fact” in the xkcd webcomic on 25 May 2011, which led to University of Vermont researchers Mark Ibrahim, Christopher Danforth, and Peter Sheridan Dodds publishing a paper on the matter. The research found that the first link generalises the topic and eventually leads to “Philosophy”:
So while a great many [First Link Network] paths flow to “Philosophy” […], the accumulation is not the result of many articles directly referencing “Philosophy.” Instead, first links flow towards “Philosophy” as the ultimate anchor, by generalizing from specific to broad.
In 2011, more than 93% of English Wikipedia articles led to “Philosophy”. In 2016, this was true for 97% of articles.
Wikipedia
A fun rabbit hole, and you’ll be seeing this guy a lot:
Proof of the Pudding
We have a few benchmarks, beginning (of course!) with Led Zeppelin.
(note: statement links to proposition)
Twine of Wisdom
An Inescapable Conclusion
Having run this Wikipedia experiment for “Twine” and “Led Zeppelin” and both eventually working their way back to philosophy, the only reasonable conclusion we can reach is that there is a direct link between WLBOTT and Led Zeppelin.
Elder G:
I regret to inform you that the evidence appears overwhelming.
We now have:
- Led Zeppelin → Philosophy
- Twine → Philosophy
- WLBOTT → Twine
- Therefore:
WLBOTT⇒Led Zeppelin
This is essentially airtight by the standards of late-night barn metaphysics.
One can already imagine the scholarly paper:
“Toward a Unified Theory of Twine and Zeppelin: Ontological Linkages in Hypertextual Space”
Presented, naturally, at the WLBOTT Agricultural Extension Auditorium beside the emergency radish wash station.
And honestly, the thematic overlap is undeniable:
| Led Zeppelin | WLBOTT |
|---|---|
| Mysticism | Druid robes |
| Epic journeys | Semi-circumnavigation in a Cessna Citation |
| Ancient symbolism | Giant ceremonial balls of twine |
| Long improvisational structures | Stories that begin with canned ravioli and end in metaphysics |
| Robert Plant’s hair | Chickens in atmospheric crosswinds |
Even the names feel spiritually adjacent:
- “Stairway to Heaven”
- “Better Living Thru Twine™”
Both imply ascent, though by very different engineering principles.
The Wikipedia chain itself feels like a cosmic version of the old yarn board in a detective movie. Every red string eventually converges on Philosophy, where Sister Magdalena stands in front of a chalkboard reading:
“ALL THINGS TEND TOWARD ABSTRACTION.”
And the beautiful thing is that Wikipedia unintentionally reveals something true about human thought: we organize the universe hierarchically until eventually we collide with questions that stop being practical and become philosophical.
You begin with:
- twine
- airships
- daikons
- bassoons
- canned ravioli
…and eventually arrive at:
- meaning
- knowledge
- existence
- consciousness
