I find it amusing that in this article, you are advocating the use of deliberate self-deception in order to ward yourself against later deliberate self-deception.
That said, I feel the urge to contribute despite the large time-gap, and I suspect that even if later posts revisit this concept, the relevance to my contribution will be lower.
"I believe X" is a statement of self-identity - the map of the territory of your mind. But as maps and territories go, self-identity is pretty special, as it is a map written using the territory, and changes in the map can affect the territory as a result - though not necessarily in the exactly intended fashion. So even if deliberate self-deception isn't possible, then some approximation of it probably is.
Moreover, I'd like to question the definition of 'belief' in the context. If we place an emphasis, in the concept, of a belief as something that affects one's actions, then there is such a thing as a false belief that someone holds: that is to say, an assumption someone intentionally makes, regardless of its' truth or falsehood, that they use to guide their behavior for external reasons.
That is to say, acting, or role-playing.
I'm rather a believer in cognitive minimalism - that our brains are very uncomplex. So I would assert that the same system that we use to model others' behavior - or to play others' roles - we use for our own self-identity. So when you say, "I believe X", you're effectively saying, "I act as if X is true". And if we use the same system to act like ourselves, to model our own behavior, as we do to model or act like anyone else, then that's most of what the practical impact of a belief is.
What I'm trying to say is that the only difference between acting a certain way and believing a certain thing is that you only do the acting under certain practical conditions - the belief, insofar as a belief is different from an act, is acting in a certain way all the time, for any reason.
Replace "I believe X because..." with "I act as if X is true because..." and I don't think it's confusing anymore. Self-identity modification as a tool is pretty important to human cognition, not just for trying to convince yourself that what you don't think is true, is.
Edit: Actually, I want to amend that last part now that I think on it. I would assert that there is no difference whatsoever; that all reasonable beliefs are contingent. In fact, a big part of acting rationally is about making your beliefs contingent on the truth or falsehood of the object of the belief. Beliefs that aren't based on accuracy are still contingent, just on things like, "This is beneficial to me in some way." And really, a rational belief is similar, it just goes, "I believe X because it is accurate," with the implied addition, "and accuracy is good to have in a belief," so that boils down to a practical reason as well.
I don't mean to seem like I'm picking on Kurige, but I think you have to expect a certain amount of questioning if you show up on Less Wrong and say:
"If you know it's double-think...
...how can you still believe it?" I helplessly want to say.
Or:
If you know your belief isn't correlated to reality, how can you still believe it?
Shouldn't the gut-level realization, "Oh, wait, the sky really isn't green" follow from the realization "My map that says 'the sky is green' has no reason to be correlated with the territory"?
Well... apparently not.
One part of this puzzle may be my explanation of Moore's Paradox ("It's raining, but I don't believe it is")—that people introspectively mistake positive affect attached to a quoted belief, for actual credulity.
But another part of it may just be that—contrary to the indignation I initially wanted to put forward—it's actually quite easy not to make the jump from "The map that reflects the territory would say 'X'" to actually believing "X". It takes some work to explain the ideas of minds as map-territory correspondence builders, and even then, it may take more work to get the implications on a gut level.
I realize now that when I wrote "You cannot make yourself believe the sky is green by an act of will", I wasn't just a dispassionate reporter of the existing facts. I was also trying to instill a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It may be wise to go around deliberately repeating "I can't get away with double-thinking! Deep down, I'll know it's not true! If I know my map has no reason to be correlated with the territory, that means I don't believe it!"
Because that way—if you're ever tempted to try—the thoughts "But I know this isn't really true!" and "I can't fool myself!" will always rise readily to mind; and that way, you will indeed be less likely to fool yourself successfully. You're more likely to get, on a gut level, that telling yourself X doesn't make X true: and therefore, really truly not-X.
If you keep telling yourself that you can't just deliberately choose to believe the sky is green—then you're less likely to succeed in fooling yourself on one level or another; either in the sense of really believing it, or of falling into Moore's Paradox, belief in belief, or belief in self-deception.
If you keep telling yourself that deep down you'll know—
If you keep telling yourself that you'd just look at your elaborately constructed false map, and just know that it was a false map without any expected correlation to the territory, and therefore, despite all its elaborate construction, you wouldn't be able to invest any credulity in it—
If you keep telling yourself that reflective consistency will take over and make you stop believing on the object level, once you come to the meta-level realization that the map is not reflecting—
Then when push comes to shove—you may, indeed, fail.
When it comes to deliberate self-deception, you must believe in your own inability!
Tell yourself the effort is doomed—and it will be!
Is that the power of positive thinking, or the power of negative thinking? Either way, it seems like a wise precaution.