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thomblake comments on Belief in Self-Deception - Less Wrong
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I disagree. In general, saying "I believe x" is evidence that you believe x, and therefore cannot be evidence that you do not believe x. I would be interested to see evidence that people usually use "I believe x" in such a way that it can be taken as evidence that one does not believe x.
I believe that people usually use "I believe x" instead of "x" in cases where they want to stress the possibility, however small, that they are wrong. Usual caveats for religious and "I believe in" statements, as well as unrelated senses of 'believe', apply.
Yes, that distinction definitely applies to me. Usually when I say "X" it means "I believe X with almost certainty" and when I say "I believe X" indicates that there is some doubt still, maybe a 90% confidence, but not a 99% confidence.
But in that specific case, as Misha said, I didn't need to actually believe it - it was a belief in belief in my chain of thoughts, an attempt to rationalize the initial mistake, that appeared, with further analysis, to not be the real cause of it. Having this as a real belief or not wouldn't change the reasoning.