The Tarski Undefinability Theorem "proves" that True(L, x) can never be computed on the basis that Tarski did not understand that the Liar Paradox must simply be rejected as not a truth bearer. https://liarparadox.org/Tarski_275_276.pdf — PL Olcott

No one cares about the Tarski Undefinability Theorem for practical purposes. If you're going to go that in depth, then you're going to have to be in depth in your analysis. Ok, that's likely the last response now. Good luck in your work!

Although the problem of induction seems to prove that the very next time you drop your coffee cup it might just hang there in the air levitating, I dismiss this as unreasonably implausible. — PL Olcott

Sure, but in philosophy, you need a reason. If you can't say why its unreasonably implausible, then you haven't solved anything.

Again, this does not answer the question of, "How do I know that what I know is true?"
— Philosophim

It answers it well enough for all practical purposes. Since we cannot even know that five seconds ago actually existed we can't even know that we have ever met our own mother, even if she just left the room. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis#Five-minute_hypothesis I dismiss this as unreasonably implausible. — PL Olcott

If you're just concerned about knowledge for practical purposes, nothing needs to be written or done. People use knowledge in practical ways every day. If you want to get to the heart of it, to find the specifics and create a system that can be applied universally, you can't just dismiss this issue outright.

Again, I'm just letting you know that if you want to make any serious impact in epistemology, what you have is not enough. I highly suggest reading more epistemology to really understand what's been proposed already, and what the remaining issues are.

As there can be a lot to read, here's a video giving a summary of epistemologies evolution over the years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94rK0_-x8bI

Its been a good conversation, and I think we've reached the end. Good luck in your journey!

I am taking all of the things known through induction, (ignoring the problem of induction) — PL Olcott

This is another major problem. By the way, my paper has an answer to the problem of induction. Its the last section. Induction cannot be used to ascertain truth.

and converting them into axioms in the verbal model of the actual world. These are all construed as knowledge that is known to be true. This same model also includes all analytical truth. — PL Olcott

Feel free to try. But so far this is a claim, not a proof or example.

This system allows people and machines to correctly compute True(L, x) as pure deductions within this model of the actual world. — PL Olcott

Again, this does not answer the question of, "How do I know that what I know is true?" What is true is "What is". We can't change the definition of what is true. "What is" is existent despite our having knowledge of it or not. You can put a T in a function, but that doesn't mean its an actual representative of truth.

I'm just trying to save you from going down an average path. The ideas that you are proposing are not new and have clear problems. Most epistemologists believe that knowledge has to do with mapping our words to reality. The question is "How". How do we do it and demonstrate that a knowledge claim is more reasonable than a not quite certain belief? How do you deal with cross cultural definitions, and physical contexts? How does someone who is blind know the world differently from someone who has sight?

Keep at it, but really apply these flaws I'm pointing out. If you don't have solutions to them, there is nothing your theory adds that already hasn't been implemented before.

When analytical knowledge is defined as a justified true belief such that the justification necessitates the truth of the belief then the Gettier problem is no longer possible. — PL Olcott

I've mentioned this before, and its important that you understand this. If using Kant's definitions, the Gettier problem does not apply to analytic knowledge. It applies to synthetic. JTB applies to synthetic, not analytic. Let me show you why.

Analytic knowledge is broadly defined as "True by definition". To simplify this in the most straight forward terms possible, we invent definitions. Why is a dog composed of X, Y, Z properties? Because we invented it to be that way. Definitions are essentially signs that represent some experience. For example, I can create analytic knowledge of a unicorn. I simply combine the experience of a hrose with a horn and viola, analytic knowledge.

Does that mean we can synthetically know a unicorn? Can we find one in the wild? That's the real question of JTB. Even then, analytic knowledge has its problems as well. What if I create a definition of a unicorn that also includes it being magical, while you do not? We both analytically know the definition of unicorn as something different. How do we reconcile that? Some people like Quine believe the analytic/synthetic distinction isn't really a distinction at all when you examine it closely.

But enough exploration of the analytic for now. The thing you have to understand is that JTB is not analytic, it is synthetic.

Empirical knowledge is defined as a justified true belief such that the justification makes every possible attempt to correctly match a set of physical sensations to their corresponding elements in a correct verbal model of the actual world. — PL Olcott

Except this isn't truth. Truth is, "What is". "What is" does not care about your deductions or conclusions. What you are describing is a "Justified Belief". And you are noting that a justified belief makes every possible attempt to correctly match a set of physical sensations to their corresponding elements in a correct verbal model of the actual world. I agree with this model, as I've noted repeatedly that truth is not a necessary pre-condition for knowledge. Your statement agrees with this.

Since the cost of making a mistake could make humanity extinct (or worse) it might be better to err on the safe side and say that empirical knowledge is impossible. This view tends to keep reinforcing humility. — PL Olcott

As I've noted before, this is simply giving up. Let me tell you the utter disaster this would entail. We would have no way of justifying why science is more valid than my personal beliefs. THAT would drive humanity extinct, or at least invoke some serious Darwinism. If we say empirical knowledge is impossible, then someone who believes the sun is a giant ball of gas has as much rational validity as someone who thinks its a light bulb invented from an ancient alien civilization.

We should not get caught up so much in words, technicalities, and a desire to hold ideology that we ignore reality. In reality, we ascertain that some statements are more reasonable and rational than another. In reality, people claim they have knowledge of things. Our goal in philosophy is to figure out why, and bring explicit the implicit process. Dismissing what people naturally do would be viewed as insanity by the rest of the world, and quite rightly.

Because of this it might be best to refer to {empirical knowledge} as a {reasonable guess} and never call it any kind of knowledge at all. — PL Olcott

Or we simply figure out the most reasonable way of objectively ascertaining the validity of empirical claims, and continue to use the word knowledge. Your insistence that knowledge MUST have truth is again, against the way the world works. People will not stop using the word. Your job is not to eliminate the word, but to refine it to be better used explicitly. That way when someone says, "I know this happened," we have an objective set of steps that can confirm whether that person does actually know.

Giving up is easy. It is the temptation of the intellect to do so. Do not give in.

My goal is to define truthmaker theory and epistemology is such a way that ordinary people learn correct reasoning in common terms that they already understand. When they are jurors in court cases they really need to know all of the details of how interpreting sensory perceptions can diverge from truth. We must also overcome the egoistic bias of overconfidence in one's own subjective opinions. In this case we can have some very bad outcomes if we allow knowledge to be false. — PL Olcott

This is a fine desire, but your current trajectory will destroy this. Also, your desire may not be real. That is something we also have to accept as philosophers. "I want to define knowledge that includes truth," cannot logically be done. Or, if it can, you must ignore everything else and answer the one question, "How do I know that what I claim I know is true?" in the synthetic sense. Ambitions are fine, but without this core pillar established, the whole roof will collapse around you.

Almost everyone here has proven to be very knowledgeable and sincerely wants an honest dialogue. That is much better than any other Philosophy forum. For example StackExchange severely penalizes every new idea just because it is a new idea. — PL Olcott

Agreed! I looked for years and was highly dissatisfied with them all until this one.

I do encourage you strongly to read my theory of knowledge paper that I linked towards the top of these forums.
— Philosophim
I have no idea how to find this. — PL Olcott

Here's the link again:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1

I suggest you do a cntrl-F and search for Caerulea-Lawrence as they've posted an outstanding summary of what I've written. Then if you want more details, try reading the paper itself.

The forced choice here is either to accept that a space alien perfectly disguised as a duck necessarily must be mistaken for an actual duck or empirical knowledge must be determined to be impossible. There don't seem to be even any other categories of possibility. It seems absurd that expressions of language that are false yet taken to be true could possibly be correctly construed as knowledge. — PL Olcott

I would read my paper first to understand where I'm coming from, but consider instead that knowledge is simply a tool humanity uses in an attempt to get as close to the truth as logically possible. What would be wrong with that? If we have concluded one thing is impossible, then the next step is to determine what is possible within our goals.

Consider the act of induction. I have a deck of playing cards that is normal and complete. Someone starts shuffling the deck without either of knowing the order of the cards and asks me, "What's going to be drawn first after I shuffle the deck? A card with hearts, or a card with diamonds, spades, or clovers?"

Now its impossible for me to know the answer. But, I can take what is not impossible for me to know, that there is a ratio of 3/4 that it will be a diamond, spade, or clover, and guess that it will be one of those. Its using logic in an impossible to know outcome, to still make a guess that is more likely to match the possible outcome than not.

Indeed! But I will quibble with you. In what sense do you suppose I do not understand the theorem, against what I do claim to understand about it? — tim wood

Oh, my point was not that you do or do not understand the theory. You may very well have full mastery of it. I don't pretend to. I'm just noting that if you want to be assured of such I'm sure a scientist is going to be able to give you affirmation and/or enhance your understanding more than us philosophers. :)

If you really want to understand Bell's theorem, you should visit a science forum Tim Wood. The terminology like "spin" is often misconstrued as an English equivalent. Often times words that sound like English are used as placeholders for deep mathematical and scientific concepts. At this level, everything is math with an often poor attempt to convert it into language. Only someone with a very clear scientific background would be qualified to speak with on this. Layman's understanding of quantum theories are often woefully inadequate and misunderstood.

My goal here is to end up with a universal criterion measure for truth such that True(L, x) becomes computable. I am on this forum for the purpose or researching truthmaker theory so that I can write an academic paper breaking new ground in this field. — PL Olcott

First, I want to praise this with every fiber of my being. I hope that my challenges to your writing have not come across as antagonistic. I am not trying to tear you down, I genuinely want to see if you can produce answers to the questions that have plagued epistemology for years. Knowledge was an absolute passion of mine for many years until I moved onto other things. So if I can help in any way, I will.

I do encourage you strongly to read my theory of knowledge paper that I linked towards the top of these forums. You don't have to agree with it, but if you're keen on really thinking about epistemology, you're going to want to read it and understand it as it addresses many of the problems I'm pointing out to you.

I am back to something close to my original position confusing a space alien perfectly disguised as a duck for an actual duck is the only possible mistakes allowed with my very reasonably plausible approximation of knowledge. — PL Olcott

Is it the only possible mistake though? And if a theory allows a mistake, does that mean its a complete and good theory? Lots of theories that we don't use could be used by just allowing one mistake. An epistemology that solves all of our problems can have no mistakes. You're talking about a problem that countless people have examined over thousands of years. It can have no flaws for it to be taken seriously.

Beyond the abstract, the allowance of this mistake in particular will kill your theory. Because at the end of the day you have allowed that one can know something even when its not true. You have to specifically address why that is, and it must be consistent across your entire theory. If you allow one instance in which someone can know something when it is not true, then you cannot claim that truth is a necessary component of knowledge.

If you believe that your friend has at least five coins in his pocket and you did not see at least five coins then you do not have sufficient justification for your belief. If you see these coins and they turn out to be perfect counterfeits of actual coins you are still justified in your belief. If they are obvious plastic counterfeits then your belief was never justified. — PL Olcott

These are statements, but why? Philosophy might seem easy at first, because our intuitions point out that the Gettier argument is dumb. It is being able to articulate a consistent and clearly why its dumb, and a defined solution that is where the difficulty occurs.

So a few questions with the above quote:

1. Why do you not have sufficient justification if you did not se at least five coins?
2. Why do you have sufficient justification when they still turn out to be perfect counterfeit coins?

It needs to be consistent, and applied to any other statement of knowledge.

JTB one must have justification such that the truth of the belief is a necessary consequence of its justification to the best possible extent that counterfeits of things in the world (relevant to the justification of the belief) are detected and rejected when possible. — PL Olcott

Lets look again at the statement, "to the best possible extent". What specifically is someone's best possible extent? How do we measure this or note this in any other claim? Does this only apply to counterfeits? Here's a nice summary of a classic epistemological problem, with an attempt to solve it by Dretske: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/courses/epist2001/dretske.html#:~:text=Dretske%20says%20that%20depends%20on,duck%20but%20isn't.)

Keep at it.

Hello PL Olcott, my apologies but the last few days have been busy. I can continue our conversation now.

You can "know" empirical things to a reasonably plausible degree that is less than logically justified complete certainty.

The key empirical thing is mapping a set of physical sensations to their corresponding element in the verbal model of the actual world.

The model of the world is construed as an axiomatic system. We know that {cats} are {animals} by looking this up in the knowledge tree model of the world. — PL Olcott

First, I do not disagree with your overall viewpoint here. The problem is, without certain details, you fall into the Gettier argument. Lets address your main point, "You can "know" empirical things to a reasonably plausible degree that is less than logically justified complete certainty."

Recall that Jones knows Smith has five coins in his pocket with less than logically justified complete certainty. And its truth that Smith has five coins in his pocket. So according to the above statement without any clarification, Jones knows that Smith has five coins in his pocket even though almost everyone would say he didn't have enough justification to say so.

The first problem we tackled was "Truth". I noted that truth is not a necessary condition for knowledge. But that leaves another part of knowledge to tackle. "Justification". In my opinion, that's the real crux of the Gettier argument. What does it mean to be justified? How do I separate something that I believe, from something I know?

Let me set up some terminology. "Justification" is really short for "Knowledge justification". Even beliefs have reasons why we hold them. But reasons for why we hold beliefs are not "Justification". Justification is really the magical word which means, "Holding reasons which lead us to conclude the person has knowledge."

Jones has reasons for his beliefs, but I think all of us feel he has no justification. Jones hasn't seen Smith for an hour. There are a whole host of things that could have happened to those coins. Smith could have dropped one, had a hole in his pocket, or bought something from a vending machine. Its absurd for Jones to say he "knows". Jones simply believes, with his reason being that Smith had the coins an hour ago.

This gives us a hint to what justification can be then. Justification must not be inductive. A deductive argument has premises that necessarily lead to a conclusion. Inductive arguments are premises that do not necessarily lead to a conclusion. Jones argument about Smith is inductive. Inductive arguments are not knowledge. Therefore Jones does not know Smith has five coins.

The truth of the matter is irrelevant. Lets say Smith shows Jones five coins in his hand. Jones is allowed to examine the coins in depth with all the tools he has available to him. After exhaustive study, every bit of evidence conclusively points to these five objects being coins, and that they are in Smith's hand. Deductively the only conclusion Jones can make is that there are five coins in Smith's hand. Therefore this is what Jones knows.

Of course, Smith then reveals that these "coins" are experimental spy coins that hide the fact that they are transponders. It turns out the metal shape and alloy is not currently detectible by public means, and Jones was fooled! Does that mean that Jones did not know that these were five coins in Smith's hands moments ago? Of course not. Jones absolutely knew that there were five coins in Smiths hand. It wasn't a belief, because it was the only thing which could be deduced.

So then the question for you is, "Is deduction without truth knowledge justification?"

Great analysis.

I think we're missing a lot of context here. Taken at face value, this is objectively stupid. What's the point? I'll just ask him back, "But wait. You haven't been doing quaddition. It was addition. When you said quss, you meant pluss, and: x + y = x quss y for sums less than 5, but over that, the answer is always 57. So you haven't been consistent. If you were consistent, you would have said "57.""

Then I would put it on THEM to prove to me instead of doing it myself. If they refused, I would ignore them from then on for wasting my time. :D

Without the qualified mapping that I propose Buddhist enlightenment is impossible — PL Olcott

Buddhism is just another philosophy. If its invalidated by the points I make, then it is. Buddhism affords no special treatment, and must answer the problems and solutions presented here on its own. But lets keep Buddhism out of the discussion. The question is whether knowledge needs, or does not need truth as a necessary requirement. Lets stick to that.

because societal conditioning is construed as actual truth rather than possible truth. — PL Olcott

I've given several examples in which societal conditioning is based on the context of possible truth, not actual truth. You haven't adequately shown that these examples do not happen.

This closes the mind so that when evidence is presented of the actual truth it is never noticed. — PL Olcott

Once again, you're jumping past the question, "How do we know we have actual truth?"

Within the model of the actual world we can know the stipulated relations between elements because the model of the actual world is an axiomatic system. — PL Olcott

Is it really an unquestionable system? Not at all. What is the model of a "tree". I envision a tree, and you envision a tree. Are they likely the same? No. If it were self-evident, then could I say all swans are white as an identity, then know that all swans are white?

When we attempt to map things in the world based on what appear to be sense data from the sense organs we cannot possibly tell the difference between a duck and a space alien perfectly disguised as a duck. — PL Olcott

Only if the underlying requirement is that the mapping is true. And yes, we both agree on that. This not only applies to this example, but all examples. This means again, that we can't know whether something is a duck and a space alien. So every time you go out into the world and see a duck, you'll have to say, "I don't know if that's a space alien in disguise."

That's a rather odd viewpoint of the world. When we step out of our armchair, we find this viewpoint to have major problems. We are left with a system that lets an insane person have just as much validity in saying, "I believe that duck could be a space alien in disguise," as someone who is more rational than someone who says, "I know that's a duck," even if that person has all the evidence in the world that shows that its a duck. Are we to then tell the mentally ill person, "Yes, you have the right of it. It definitely could be an alien in disguise instead of a duck."

The problem is you're so focused on fixing one problem, that you're not thinking about the numerous problems your fix results in. If you have truth as the necessary pre-requisite of knowledge, you are going to run into many, many more problems. Its like there is a crack in the wall, and instead of fixing the crack, you're breaking down the wall so the crack isn't there anymore. That's not a solution. That's just another problem.

This seems to indicate that we cannot possibly know that any mapping from what appears to be physical sensations to their element in the model of the actual world is a correct mapping. — PL Olcott

True, if we require that our mapping must be true. Why not instead of mapping based on reason, we say mapping is based on rational application with the limited information a person or group has at the time? Thus I can know that duck is a duck. I have no information that implies its a space alien, so I can't know it as a space alien, I can only know it as a duck. Then if later it reveals itself to be a space alien I can say, "I once knew that as a duck. I no longer know that as a duck. Now I know it as a space alien." And to be silly, the space alien could actually be a human disguised as a duck disguised as a space alien, ad infinitum, and we would still have stages in which we knew what it was based on a rational application of the limited information we had at the time.

If they assume that all apples are red without seeing all apples
then they are wrong even if their assumption is correct. — PL Olcott

This is just a repetition of a previous statement, and doesn't solve the issue. You're not explaining to me how we resolve the fact that properties as part of the definition, are later found to be wrong. That means you can never know anything. What if we discover 100 years ago after scientific DNA advances in DNA, that oranges are actually apples? Its not just the color, its any property of anything we know. Its a vivid example of, "How do we know that what we know is true?"

I will count on gravity as long as it continues to function. I will not
assume that it is an immutable law of nature. — PL Olcott

Its not the question of whether you count on gravity, its whether you know what gravity is. Do you know gravity as the force that pulls all matter together? If we did find something different about gravity in the future, wouldn't we say it was because of the context of what people had available at the time, just like the sun example?

Don't just respond that these are assumptions next time please. Really think about it. Address the broad idea, not the specific instance.

To conclude that all swans are white on the basis of some swans are
white is flat out incorrect and there cannot possibly be two ways about this. — PL Olcott

Lets take another example. You live in a place where all apples are red. Everyone calls them apples, everyone knows that they are red. Ask a person what color an apple is, and they'll say, "Red". We know green apples exist. But for them, they've never encountered or heard of a green apple. An apple being red is part of the definition of being an apple. That is what is known. Green apples won't be introduced for 200 years. Are you saying in that time that no one ever knew what an apple was?

And again:

Do we say, "All the gravity we have encountered so far causes bodies to accelerate towards each other, or do we say gravity causes all bodies to accelerate towards one another? — Philosophim

We say gravity causes bodies to accelerate towards each other. Its in the definition. We don't adendum knowledge claims with all possible exceptions. We assert. Do you know that gravity is a force that pulls objects together regardless of distance, or not?

I'm noting that swans by definition were known as white at the time. The house by definition is not white, it has the attribute of white. The swan by definition was white. It was part of its identity.

If the rest of the points are also not addressed, then the point stands. And its really not my point, its just a point that's been concluded by many people in epistemology. If you want to counter them, my arguments are things you'll need to have answers to. Keep at it!

From their frame-of-reference they could see the Sun cross the sky
thus saying they they see the Sun cross the sky is accurate. — PL Olcott

Then you agree with me. The truth is that the sun does not revolve around the Earth, it is that the Earth revolves around the sun. You allow frame of reference to be more important than truth for knowledge, which I agree with. Thus knowledge does not have truth as a necessary pre-requisite.

The correct thing to do at the time is to say all the swans that I know about are white.
To say that all swans are white is incorrect reasoning. — PL Olcott

No. At the time it was just understood that swans were white. You would ask a person, "What color are swans?" and they would say, "White." Do we say, "All the gravity we have encountered so far causes bodies to accelerate towards each other, or do we say gravity causes all bodies to accelerate towards one another?

Finally, I did not see a proof in your reply. I will assume that you don't have a proof that lets us know that what we know is true. So the point stands. Truth is not a pre-requisite for knowledge.

The meaning of the word "knowledge" requires that it be true. — PL Olcott

It does not. Prove that it requires it. To prove that it requires it, you must demonstrate that one can have synthetic knowledge of it, and also prove that it is true. And to clarify, the thing that we are proving is true, must not be known to be true prior to that proof.

Try and find any false statement that counts as knowledge that is
not merely knowledge of its falsity. — PL Olcott

I mentioned an example earlier. Over 2000 years ago people used to know that the Sun circled in the sky around the Earth. Later, we found out its actually the Earth that circles around the Sun. My point is that though people did not have the truth of the relative movement of the Earth and the Sun, this was all they could know. All logic lead to the conclusion that the Sun rotated around the in the sky, not that the Earth rotated around the Sun.

Lets go one further. At one time swans were known to be white. Later, someone discovered that swans were black on another continent. Prior to this discovery, didn't people know swans as white? If someone said, "Actually, swans are black" without any justification, they would be ridiculed. Are we to say then that they didn't know what a swan was? What if we later find out swans can be orange? Did we not know what a swan was?

Finally, imagine a man who lives in a forest goes about identifying different plants for his own amusement. He points at a short tree and says, "That's a bush". He's always able to identify it as a bush with complete accuracy. One day a botanist visits him and says, "Actually, that's a tree." The man looks at him and says, "Well that's a bush to me, I don't do botany." So what does the man know the bush as? Does he know? Has he ever known what the plant was?

Knowledge is personal, societal, and cultural. It does not depend on truth as a necessary precondition.

You are disputing this.
Most everyone knows that ALL knowledge must be true or instead of
knowledge we have false presumptions. — PL Olcott

Lets say, even though you have no proof, that most people think that truth is a requirement for knowledge. Philosophy is not a contest of opinions. Can you prove that truth is a necessary requirement for knowledge?

Realizing that synthetic knowledge is impossible yet also understanding
that a close approximation of synthetic knowledge has proven to be very
reliable how do these things fit within the Gettier cases?

Gettier cases prove that a reasonable approximation of knowledge
sometimes diverges from actual knowledge. — PL Olcott

I never said synthetic knowledge was impossible. I simply noted that truth cannot be a necessary requirement for synthetic knowledge. Gettier cases are happy accidents that technically happen due to the JTB as written down. Most of them can be fixed by spelling out one's justification.

"A bear is nearby" How did you get that? "Well I saw a bear up ahead just a minute ago." What bear is nearby? "A different bear behind me. I had justification for my belief, and my belief was true therefore I knew there was a bear nearby."

This is of course, stupid. Gettier was pointing out that JTB as written neglected one very important part of justification. That it should lead to why the conclusion is true, not that the conclusion is true and you had some justification for your belief. Something like this is an acceptable solution.

The problem is when you say, "It has to actually be true" you have to answer the question of, "How do you know it is true?" You cannot. If you can, feel free to do so. But if you cannot, then you cannot state that knowledge has truth as a necessary pre-requisite. Otherwise you say we know nothing, which is again, the abandonment of epistemology.

My apologies, but I have places to go this evening. I'll carry on our conversation tomorrow.

I went back through what you said and your position seems to be
that because there are cases where we cannot possibly confirm
that a belief is definitely true we should construe these cases as
knowledge even when they might be false. — PL Olcott

Close. Its more to the fact that there is no answer to the question, "How do we know if what we know is true?" Its impossible in regards to the synthetic, backed by many arguments. And yet we still use knowledge. We still need some way to say, "It is more reasonable to believe this, than that."

So then the only conclusion is that truth must not be a necessary component for knowledge. This makes sense the more we think about it. Prior to telescopes, ancient man knew that the sun crossed the sky from the East to the West. Today, we have greater knowledge and know that the Earth rotates around the Sun, not the other way around. Did that mean ancient man did not know that the Sun circled the sky? Of course not. That was the only thing they could deduce from the information they had.

To say they didn't know it is to make all beliefs have the same rational weight. That means someone who said the sun magically altered our senses and actually always traveled West to East would have an equally valid conclusion. To us, this is absurd. We innately understand that one statement is more rational than the other.

Back then, they knew that the Sun crossed the sky. Today, we know that its actually the Earth rotating away from and back to facing the sun. Perhaps we will know something different in the future. The point is that what we know is what is able to be most rationally concluded with the information and reasoning we have. Its a tool, not truth itself.

The trick then is how do we construct this system of reasoning to be more rational and the best chance to be as close to truth as possible? How do we separate "knowledge" from mere belief? I could go into it, but I wrote a whole paper on it already, and gave a very light summary earlier. Feel free to visit the page and scroll down a few replies. You can cntrl-F and type in Caerulea-Lawrence. They gave a better summary than I ever could have. Feel free to ask me further questions there or feel free to read the original post if it strikes your interest.

"Truth cannot be a necessary component of knowledge."
How so? — PL Olcott

Please re-read my previous comments. That's been the entire point of the conversation.

The the Gettier issues would seem to only involve making sure that
our physical sensations actually do correctly map to the correct elements
in the model of the actual world. — PL Olcott

Which again leaves us with, "How do we know that we're correctly matching the correct elements in the model of the actual (true) world?" Its the same question again. Truth cannot be a necessary component of knowledge.

You did not bother to notice that an argument can be valid
even if its premsies are false. — PL Olcott

I don't need to. My point had nothing to do with validity, and you know that because I explicitly noted your premises were not true. That's not honest discussion at that point.

I believe there's nothing more to discuss here either. You've already noted you cannot answer the major question of "How do we know what is true?" Without that, nothing has been solved. Not that I wouldn't try to continue tackling the question, but until that question is answered, your solution is a dead end.

A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. — PL Olcott

You posted this up above. To be a sound deductive argument, the premises need to be true. This is getting into silly territory now. Do not be afraid to concede a point, or at least leave. Stubbornly trying to make a point without merit is not seeking truth, its seeking ego.

You haven't proven your premises as true, therefore you're argument is not deductive.

If we are living in a perfect simulation of reality like the brain-in-a-vat
thought experiment then all of our knowledge of physical realty is false
because physical reality does not exist. — PL Olcott

No, its only false if truth is a necessary pre-requisite for knowledge. You've made the claim that it is, but there are practical problems in doing so. I have claimed it is not by pointing out that means we cannot know anything besides our own analytic constructions. This is useless to us, as we deal with more than our analytic constructions in the world.

The synthetic side of the analytic / synthetic distinction simply assumes
that physical reality exists. Because it is possible that this is false then
there cannot be 100% certain knowledge of physical reality. — PL Olcott

No, the synthetic side does not assume "physical reality" exists. The synthetic side addresses the point that there is more to reality than simply our thoughts. Whether this is "physical" or "something else" is a different question entirely. Unless you champion solipsism, you must address the synthetic side of reality. Do you believe there is something that exists beyond your thoughts? Then you believe in situations that require synthetic judgements, and thus questions of synthetic knowledge.

With valid reasoning the premises are assumed to be true even if they
are false. — PL Olcott

This doesn't make any sense. Either the premises are true or false.

(1) It definitely true that synthetic knowledge actually does not exist. — PL Olcott

You have not proved this anywhere. In fact, this statement is a contradiction. When you speak of "exist" you mean, "exists apart from an analytic identity". That means you are trying to synthetically claim that synthetic knowledge does not exist.

You could try to analytically claim that synthetic knowledge does not exist, but then I could claim the opposite. Now we're left with the mess of everything being true, even contradictions. Again, why synthetic knowledge is, at least in the confines of this argument, a very real thing that needs addressing, not mere dismissal.

If synthetic knowledge does not actually exist and I have correctly
shown that it does not, then this corrects mere presumptions to the
contrary, thus objectively is progress. — PL Olcott

No, that's not progress at all. You haven't shown that there is no synthetic knowledge, you've simply set the definition of knowledge as something impossible to obtain. That's not useful, nor does it help us solve problems like science, facts, and knowing where I put my keys. Your solution to the Gettier argument is to burn everything down. That's not a solution.

We know that every element of the set of semantic tautologies is true.
AKA self-evident truth. — PL Olcott

Yes, analytic knowledge is true by definition. Few debate that. We're talking about synthetic, which is the entire target of the Gettier argument.

Everything else is at best a reasonably plausible estimate of knowledge.
Or we could say that it functions as if it was true. — PL Olcott

Which means that we have no synthetic knowledge of the world according to your Gettier fix. That's a failure, not a success.

How do we distinguish the difference between reality and a perfect
simulation of reality that has no distinguishable difference?

We Don't !!! — PL Olcott

Then we know nothing. That's why your fix to the Gettier problem fails. Knowledge is obviously something we use. It differentiates itself from mere belief. The specifics of how and why are the entire question of epistemology. Your viewpoint leads to the "nihilism" conclusion, which is rejected by most thinkers in the field.

If you tie truth as a necessary condition for knowledge, then the nihilism solution, "We know nothing, there is no knowledge" is the only solution. And quite frankly, that's silly. That's an indicator we're doing something wrong. And what's wrong? Making truth as a necessary pre-condition for knowledge. Check my paper out if you want an alternative.

Reviewing some of the Gettier cases it seems that they involve
an incorrect mapping from a set of physical sensations to their
corresponding elements in the model of the actual world. — PL Olcott

And again, the same question. How do we know we have the correct mapping, or know that what we know is true?

When we require that the justification for the belief necessitates
that the belief is true, then the incorrect mapping is excluded
from justification. — PL Olcott

Sure, if it was as simple as that the argument would have instantly died. But how do we know that the belief is true? You can't. Therefore you cannot have truth as a necessary pre-requisite for (synthetic) knowledge. No matter how much you try to avoid this, it will always be there.

Only the analytic side of the analytic / synthetic distinction has proof.
The synthetic side (that I call the empirical side) only has evidence. — PL Olcott

My adaptation of JTB requires proof that the belief is true, with less
than proof we only have presumption and thus not knowledge. — PL Olcott

Then according to your JTB, no one can ever know anything synthetically. Meaning I can't know if I'm really in my house or if I'm a brain in a vat. The Gettier argument is not a criticism of analytic, but synthetic arguments.

Until you answer the question, "How do I know what I know is true?" you've solved nothing. If we don't have a method to know that what we know is true, then we never have synthetic knowledge about anything. Its all beliefs. Is that where you want to go?

That the animal in front of you seems to have all of the properties of
a cat is evidence and not proof that it is a cat. — PL Olcott

Then how would we prove its a cat? How would we prove that its true that its a space monster, especially if its a perfectly disguised cat? Because it can't accidently be true right? That's the whole point of the Gettier argument.

↪Philosophim It is certainly not impossible to know with 100% complete certainty that a dog is an animal and my adaptation to JTB specifically excludes anything that is not known on the basis of complete proof. — PL Olcott

You ignored the key question about truth. How do you know its true? How do you know you have complete proof?

I have pondered this again and again for years.
"If truth is the necessary ingredient for knowledge, how do I know what I claim I know is true?"
Truth is a necessary yet insufficient condition for knowledge.

Knowledge requires:
Awareness that an expression is true on the basis of complete proof that the expression is true. — PL Olcott

The reason you've pondered it for years is that there is no answer. Logically, the only conclusion is its impossible. Therefore the only conclusion is that knowledge does not rely on truth as a necessary condition. That doesn't mean that knowledge isn't incredibly useful, or that we can suddenly start believing whatever we want. Check out my paper. There's a great summary of the ideas from another poster a few replies down from the paper.

"instance where there is something outside of our ability to know"
Does not count as knowledge under my adaptation of JTB. — PL Olcott

I'm putting forth some effort here, please do more than a few sentences if you're serious about engaging. Think about it. If truth is the necessary ingredient for knowledge, how do I know what I claim I know is true?

Somehow the replies got out of order. My point above is in regards to

↪Philosophim My adapted version of JTB does seems to perfectly divide knowledge from presumption and falsity and utterly eliminate the Gettier cases. — PL Olcott

As for the the cats DNA, you're missing the point of the thought experiment. The point is that we're in an instance where there is something outside of our ability to know, but from everything we observe and are capable of concluding, the only reasonable thing we can know is that its a cat. Thus we know something that isn't true.

When knowledge is defined as a justified true belief such that the justification necessitates the truth of the belief then the Gettier problem is no longer possible. — PL Olcott

And how do we know its true? I have a creature that's a space monster, and its absolutely beyond any human to find out its a space monster. We know it as a cat. Its not true that its a cat, but that's what we know it as. Under your point, no one could say they knew it as a cat. In which case, we can only say they believe it is a cat.

The problem is, you need some way to measure a belief against truth. How do you make it possible in this instance? How do we know that many things that we claim to know, are actually not knowledge if we discovered some new aspect of reality? We can't. This is why knowledge cannot be a claim of necessary truth.

↪Philosophim I always view these things in terms of pure logic. If a thing in the world can be empirically validated to have all of the properties of a cat including the DNA of a cat then this thing is necessarily a cat, all opinions to the contrary are counter-factual. The belief aspect of JTB is required because unless at least one person knows X then X is not knowledge even if X is true. — PL Olcott

To clarify, it is not that it is necessarily a cat. It is that you can logically conclude no other identity at the time of your identification. One could have the belief that its a space monster in disguise. In truth, it could be. But there's no way we could ever say, "I know its a space monster in disguise". Because knowledge is a tool of logic about what we can conclude with the information we have, not an assertation of truth itself.

I would say logic is the organization of thoughts and identities at an attempt to arrive at conclusions that are concurrent with reality. This is done using deduction. This is logic.