Speculative Philosophy on Screen: Identity, Agency, and the Fiction of Reality

Close-up of a human eye with digital glitch effects and overlaid text reading 'What if reality is wrong?'—a visual metaphor for distorted perception and unreliable truth.

Regular readers know I often write about identity, free will, and the narrative constraints of language. But I also explore these ideas through fiction, under the name Ridley Park.

In this short video, I unpack the philosophical motivations behind my stories, including:

  • Why reality is never as it seems
  • Why the self is a narrative convenience
  • What Heidegger’s Geworfenheit and Galen Strawson’s Causa Sui argument reveal about agency
  • And why language fails us – even when we think it serves

This isn’t promotional fluff. It’s epistemological dissent in a new format. Fictional, yes, but only in the sense that most of reality is, too.

▶️ Watch the video: Why I Write the Way I Do