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.

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

In epistemology (theory of knowledge), a self-evident proposition is a
proposition that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-evidence

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

Even though we might actually be a brain-in-a-vat it does really seem
like we can get up off the couch and make a sandwich. Getting up off
the couch and making a sandwich is in the model of the actual world.
This remains true even if couches and sandwiches never physically
existed.

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.

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.

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.

"No, that's not progress at all."

You did not pay close enough attention to the exact words that I said.
With valid reasoning the premises are assumed to be true even if they
are false.

Premises:
(1) It is definitely true that synthetic knowledge actually does not exist.
(2) I have shown that (1) is true
(3) I have corrected the mere presumptions to the contrary
Thus I have made progress by correcting false presumptions.

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.

Validity and Soundness
A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. Otherwise, a deductive argument is said to be invalid.

A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
https://iep.utm.edu/val-snd/

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.

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.

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.

"You haven't proven your premises as true, therefore you're argument is not deductive."
As long as the conclusion is a necessary consequence of its premises then the reasoning
is deductively valid even if the premises are false. This is common knowledge across
everyone that understands the deductive inference model.

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.

The solipsism argument (whether it is accepted or not) proves that it is
possible that reality is nothing more than our thoughts, thus the synthetic
side of the analytic / synthetic distinction cannot be perfectly relied upon
as necessary true.

It seems that the most reasonable way around these two issues seems
to be to build a model of reality that takes it is a possibly false premise
that solipsism is false and we are not living in a simulation.

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.

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

Validity and Soundness
A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. Otherwise, a deductive argument is said to be invalid. https://iep.utm.edu/val-snd/

I rephrase this as whenever a conclusion is a necessary consequence of its premises
then the argument is valid.

If the Moon is made from green cheese then the Moon is made from cheese.

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.

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

That seems to me to be perfectly analogous to saying that
"not being dead" is not a necessary aspect of being alive.

If what is taken to be knowledge turns out to be false then
it never was actual knowledge it was only mere presumption.

"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.

It seems to be the exact same position that the {alternative facts}
people push so that they can get away with disinformation.

--- Conway's use of the phrase "alternative facts" for demonstrable
--- falsehoods was widely mocked on social media and sharply criticized
--- by journalists and media organizations ...
--- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_facts

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.

Maybe this paraphrase of your words will enable you to see
that this position is untenable.

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.

"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?"

Yes that is very good.
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.

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

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

Isaac Asimov's essay, The Relativity of Wrong, might be of interest.

Within my augmentation of JTB that requires the belief to be a
necessary consequence of its justification Gettier is abolished.

This causes all synthetic expressions of language to be rejected
as knowledge. My augmentation of JTB rejects inductive inference
because it is less than 100% reliable.

This causes all synthetic expressions of language to be rejected
as knowledge. — PL Olcott

You seem to have a weird notion of causality to me. Nothing is causing me to reject synthetic expressions of language as knowledge.

Maybe you can rephrase that?

Because of the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment and that it is
understood that solipsism cannot be definitely refuted any
"knowledge" obtained from what appears to be sense data
from the sense organs is possibly fake thus cannot possibly
be perfectly relied upon as definitely true.

The alternative proof is anchored in the problem of induction.
https://iep.utm.edu/problem-of-induction/
We cannot rely on past experience as a perfect predictor
of future events.

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

The purpose of the Gettier problem is to show the limitation of the traditional JTB definition of knowledge.

If you define knowledge as something like certain true belief, as you seem to, then it would be immune to Gettier problems, but as a consequence much of what we think of as knowledge isn’t actually knowledge, and that might be an untenable consequence.

If you define knowledge as something like certain true belief, as you seem to, then it would be immune to Gettier problems, but as a consequence much of what we think of as knowledge isn’t actually knowledge, and that might be an untenable consequence. — Michael

If it is true that much of what we think of as knowledge isn’t actually knowledge
then we must accept that as it is.

We are free to create an alternative to knowledge {reasonably plausible assertions}
that can be applied to the synthetic side of the analytic / synthetic distinction.

A verbal model of the actual world can be construed as axioms. Within this model
we can know with absolute perfect certainty that {kittens} are not any type of {fifteen
story office building}.

What we cannot know with absolute certainty is that a kitten that we are looking at
right now physically exists, or is not a mere figment of the solipsist's imagination.

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

I drive down a forest road and see a bear beside it in the distance. No, as I approach it I see it is merely a small tree. What is so profound about this sort of thing?

I drive down a forest road and see a bear beside it in the distance. No, as I approach it I see it is merely a small tree. What is so profound about this sort of thing? — jgill

It was not a justified true belief such that the belief is a necessary consquence of its justification until you know it is a tree. Prior to that it was an incorrect guess.