Forced Yet Free: What Magicians' Forcing Reveals Beyond Intentional Binding

Abstract

In magicians' forcing, spectators may experience a choice as self-determined even when that choice has been externally directed. Research on the sense of agency has developed largely around action-outcome relations, most notably intentional binding; however, the problem of choice authorship (why a particular choice is experienced as originating from oneself) must be treated as distinct. This paper integrates research on agency and forcing by distinguishing the locus of intervention within the choice-action-outcome chain, self-attribution at the Decision, Action, and Outcome levels, and the processes by which feeling of agency and judgment of agency are constructed. On this basis, a distinction is drawn between intentional binding, which concerns the temporal/causal relation between action and outcome, and the different binding problem exposed by forcing: the relation between a choice and its author. This theoretical relation is termed authorship binding. Authorship binding does not denote a new implicit measure; rather, it refers to the constructive relation through which a choice whose formation has been directed by external factors can nevertheless be experienced as originating from the self. Forcing can sustain this relation not by eliminating agency, but by selectively preserving, substituting, and redistributing agency cues. XR, in which body-centred spatial relations can be manipulated, is further conceptualised as a medium for extending the forced-yet-free structure into space.