--- title: Philosophy & Ethics description: User Illusion is SW Hammond’s long-running digital escape — essays, short stories, cultural criticism, memes, and memory fractals exploring the human hustle, the stories we tell ourselves, and the gap between appearance and what’s actually there. canonical_url: https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?start=24 language: en-GB date: 2025-10-10T01:49:57Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?start=24. markdown-tokens: 2381 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?start=24. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. ## Producing Intelligence The human who sits with intelligence until it remembers what it was born to become. Writings on AI, philosophy, and the art of producing meaning in a synthetic age. [ Follow SWH on ](https://www.x.com/swhammond) ![](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/yootheme/background-glow-02.svg) ![](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/yootheme/background-glow-01.svg) ![](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/yootheme/background-glow-03.svg) # Philosophy & Ethics - [ Artificial Intelligence ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/44-artificial-intelligence) - [ Philosophy & Ethics ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy) - [ Pop Culture ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture) - [ Society & Politics ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/14-culture) [ ![AI, Robots, and The Singularity](https://articles.swhammond.com/media/yootheme/cache/46/Singularity-46dcc6da.jpg) 05 October 2017 ## AI and the Technological Singularity What is the technological singularity, and why we should care about it? The technological singularity marks the point beyond prediction. The theory holds that technology / machines will become so advanced that they will gain an intelligence of their own. This intelligence will duplicate (independent of humans) and compound to the point of super-intelligence, or an intelligence greater than that of a human being. Intelligence is subjective, but my definition involves an entity defining its… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/168-ai-and-the-technological-singularity) [ ![](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/blog/Jones_Formula.jpg) 28 July 2017 ## Jones' Formula For Best Sellers Here’s a much different way of looking at art and storytelling—perhaps a method that your editor or writing group may never have considered, or succinctly explained. I’m going to share with you a formula created by Dr. Todd Jones that explains what makes good art and literature. Jones is a celebrated philosophy professor with a significant background in anthropology. Jones’s BeDE Theory of Art Criticism: Art or literature’s only function—the only thing it is good at… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/123-jones-formula-for-best-sellers) [ ![George Berkeley With Trump Hair and Orange Skin](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/blog/george_berkeley_trump.jpg) 27 June 2017 ## George Berkeley: Make Philosophy Great Again George Berkeley slides onto the scene a la Tom Cruise in Risky Business; the “cool guy” that’s had enough of these schoolmen stinkin’ up the place with their Pigpen philosophy. Yeah, he might be a little self-indulgent—I assume he has orange skin and sweet comb-over—but that’s okay because he speaks for us common folk. He waves a big banner of common sense and God, and as long as I can keep my guns, I’ll vote for him as my favorite modern philosopher. “It’s gonn… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/97-george-berkeley-make-philosophy-great-again) [ ![A powerful cinematic symbolic illustration perfectly capturing the essay “Big Data: Removing Bias Within The Judicial System” by SW Hammond. Center on Lady Justice standing tall and resolute in a grand marble courtroom that seamlessly fades into a digital cosmos filled with subtle stars and circuit constellations. She is blindfolded, holding her sword of authority firmly in one hand. Her traditional golden scales of justice are dramatically tipped to the left, weighed down heavily by symbols of corruption and two-tiered justice: heavy gold money bags, political party flags, shadowy elite figures, and cracked chains. From the right side, glowing electric-blue streams of pure data — flowing binary code, neural network connections, clean algorithm points, and sabermetrics-style metrics — pour in like an unstoppable river of light, perfectly lifting, balancing, and repairing the scales with precision and hope. Dramatic volumetric lighting, moody atmosphere with deep shadows contrasted by hopeful electric-blue and warm gold accents, intellectual and defiant yet quietly optimistic mood. Highly detailed, professional, cinematic concept art fused with surreal digital elements, perfect for social media headers and website afterwords](https://articles.swhammond.com/media/yootheme/cache/57/judicial_2026-579bbe87.jpg) 06 June 2017 ## Big Data: Removing Bias Within The Judicial System Ideological partisanship is deteriorating our society. It’s very nature fosters inequality, stunts progression, and detracts from the common good. This poison has completely consumed the Executive and Legislative branches of government, and continues to leech into the Judicial—the people’s single safe-haven that promises unwavering and unbiased justice to all regardless of race, class, creed, or religion. By using big data, we can offer empirical certainty that equal and consistent justice is… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/96-big-data-removing-bias-within-the-judicial-system) [ ![Red Pill or Blue Pill](https://articles.swhammond.com/images/blog/FreeWillPill_600.jpg) 22 May 2017 ## Leibniz: Human Freewill \*Wink I wonder if Leibniz, somewhere deep inside himself, had this overwhelming feeling of giddiness when he wrote “Primary Truths”? While he couldn’t predict the future, something within the eternal truth of himself must have tingled with the thought of philosophy students—350 years later—reading his words. Some part of his subconscious swelling because the version of his perfected-self, the version that God decided would be best for the world, was one where he is to be echo… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/95-leibniz-human-freewill-wink) [ ![Professional graphic design in pop art style, featuring an abstract brain surrounded by vibrant stars and galaxies, with surreal elements blending seamlessly into the cosmic multiverse, a color palette that shifts dynamically between calming pastels such as light blue and pale pink, and neon hues like green and yellow, every detail meticulously crafted to convey a sense of wit and humor, the abstract brain filled with swirling clouds of purple and blue, with text incorporated in a bold, futuristic font, reading "The mind: Your only reliable guide through the cosmic mess" in a curved line above the brain, with the words "cosmic mess" in a smaller, neon yellow font.](https://articles.swhammond.com/media/yootheme/cache/31/descarte_wax_8-315ee789.jpg) 16 March 2017 ## Descartes’ Wax: The Cosmic Key to Existence What if a piece of wax only exists because a mind dares to ponder it? Buckle up, cosmic wanderers—Rene Descartes, that 17th-century philosopher with a knack for existential chaos, dropped a mind-bender that’s more profound than his God obsession: the wax argument. Forget divine proofs; this gooey metaphor melts away our flimsy reliance on senses, proving the mind reigns supreme in unraveling reality. Let’s dive into this philosophical portal, where wax outshines deities and questions of existen… ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/94-descartes-wax-more-important-than-god) - [ ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?format=html&start=18) - [1](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?format=html) - [2](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?format=html&start=6) - [3](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?format=html&start=12) - [4](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?format=html&start=18) - 5 - [6](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?format=html&start=30) - [ ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy?format=html&start=30) --- ### Additional Articles - [ A Reflection on Society’s Moral Decay ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/14-culture/286-a-reflection-on-societys-moral-decay) - [ Net Neutrality - Speak Up Now! ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/14-culture/104-net-neutrality-speak-up-now) - [ Robocalypse: The Commodore's Coda - Part 12 ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/short-stories/56-robocalypse/304-robocalypse-the-commodores-coda-part-12) - [ 'Sense8' - More Than Just Affirmative Action ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/32-shows-movies/113-sense8-more-than-just-affirmative-action) - [ The Pastry War: The Dumbest War In History? ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/195-the-pastry-war-the-dumbest-war-in-history) - [ Impressionable ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/43-pop-culture/28-music/30-impressionable) - [ Leibniz: Human Freewill \*Wink ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/16-philosophy/95-leibniz-human-freewill-wink) - [ Millennial Extremism - Democracy In Jeopardy ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/14-culture/118-millennial-extremism-democracy-in-jeopardy) - [ Woke Is A Political Party: What Have These Ideas Contributed? ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/14-culture/289-woke-is-a-political-party-what-have-these-ideas-contributed) - [ All I Want Is Honesty ](https://articles.swhammond.com/content/articles/14-culture/106-all-i-want-is-honesty)