Not sure whether you really mean ‘know apriori to be wrong’, which would be a very bold claim on almost any issue. But I think people can definitely self-decieve. Used to spend a lot of time arguing on religion sites, and I always found the counter-argument to Pascal’s Wager that you ‘can’t just decide what to believe’ very weak, especially as Pascal himself set out a ‘influence your own belief’ how-to. It’s not even that exceptional: I suspect that most people could get themselves into being ‘true believers’ in one political stance or other by surrounding themselves with people and arguments of that position, unless they lack any interest or have very clearly thought out and/or dogmatically fixed views already.
On the other hand, not sure the link is Eliezer denying that people can self-decieve, it’s saying that many people who seem to have self-decieved have only reached the ‘belief about belief’ stage rather than the true belief stage.
Not sure whether you really mean ‘know apriori to be wrong’, which would be a very bold claim on almost any issue. But I think people can definitely self-decieve. Used to spend a lot of time arguing on religion sites, and I always found the counter-argument to Pascal’s Wager that you ‘can’t just decide what to believe’ very weak, especially as Pascal himself set out a ‘influence your own belief’ how-to. It’s not even that exceptional: I suspect that most people could get themselves into being ‘true believers’ in one political stance or other by surrounding themselves with people and arguments of that position, unless they lack any interest or have very clearly thought out and/or dogmatically fixed views already.
On the other hand, not sure the link is Eliezer denying that people can self-decieve, it’s saying that many people who seem to have self-decieved have only reached the ‘belief about belief’ stage rather than the true belief stage.
I also know many cases similar to what you describe which is why I tried to come up with this argument.
Here’s another link about Eliezer arguing against self-deception. Perhaps he is only claiming that it is very hard, not impossible.