Regarding prophecy

I think there is a big difference between testimony and prophecy. The condition for accepting testimony is a thorough investigation of the witness. If a person comes to the court and declares, "Reuven murdered Shimon," and leaves without detail or investigation, the court will not consider such testimony at all. Interrogating the witness is essential, and not just because of credibility. Interrogating the witness is important for two reasons: A. To make sure that the witness is honest and not a false witness. B. To know the details of the case, down to the smallest detail. The second reason is important because the witness may be interpreting what he saw incorrectly. He testifies that Reuven murdered Shimon, but when we question him about the details, it turns out that he only saw Reuven holding a knife full of blood and Shimon lying lifeless under him and there was no one else in the area. From the witness's perspective, it is clear that Reuven was the one who murdered Shimon, but in reality this is not the reality, but his interpretation of what he saw. It is possible that Reuven tried to save Shimon.
Man automatically gives an interpretation to the reality that his eyes see, we as a prophet need to investigate it thoroughly and discover the exact reality from his words and not accept his interpretation as reality.
This is a detail that we lack in investigating prophecy. I compare prophecy to a wise man and a blind man, similar to the example of the rabbi in the notebook. The prophet is wise in a world of blind people from birth. A prophet blind from birth cannot interrogate a wise witness for the simple reason that he does not know at all what “evidence” is and has no idea how to interrogate such a thing. He will not be able to ask the witness the critical details to discover whether this is reality or whether this is the witness’s misinterpretation of reality. Therefore, he will not be able to draw any conclusion from such testimony. So with prophecy, we have no way of ascertaining the exact reality, we have no idea what is happening in this experience called prophecy. When the prophet tells us that he saw something, he does not mean that he really saw it, it is simply the concept that we know, so he uses this concept. It is like the wise man in the world of the blind would want to explain to them that a “beautiful flower” is and he would tell them that a “tasty flower” is because beautiful is a concept that does not exist in the world and “tasty” would be the closest explanation. Of course, he misleads and confuses them. The blind might even eat the flower. This example illustrates how problematic our ability to investigate prophecy is.
In prophecy, we have another problematic element. Many times the prophet does not tell us the reality he experienced at all, but rather the conclusion he draws from it; he does not make a factual claim but a normative claim (as the rabbi used the term in our correspondence regarding the obligation). Moses tells the people of Israel, “We must keep the Sabbath.” This exacerbates the problem in our ability to investigate prophecy. He may be a truthful prophet and he experienced a certain experience (which we do not understand), but the normative conclusion he draws from the experience is wrong. And we have no way of following the entire process and investigating it.

In conclusion, if we compare prophecy to testimony, we need to investigate two things:
1. The credibility of the witness.
2. The credibility of the witness’s interpretation that it does indeed correspond to reality as it is.
And in addition to the testimony that deals with the facts in the prophecy, we need to investigate:
3. The credibility of the normative conclusion.

As far as I understand, we may have the opportunity to investigate Section 1. But we do not have the tools to investigate Sections 2 and 3, even if the Prophet was here before us, let alone when it comes to an event over 3000 years ago.

May God bless you for your time, patience, and effort!
All the best.

I don't see the importance of this difference. The bottom line is that it's about impressions, the same way you get impressions from anyone who tells you something (tells you what time it is or how to get somewhere), including witnesses. If it's credible to you, you accept it, and if not, then you don't. I expanded on this in my book Truth and Unstable.

1. How do I know that this is not a hallucination? Even a person who is hallucinating sees and hears things and is certain of their truth.
2. I am surprised that the rabbi does not see the importance of the difference. If a witness were to come to the rabbi's court, theoretically for the sake of the example we have no fear that he is lying we know for sure that he is an honest man, and he says “Reuven murdered Shimon” Before the rabbi has time to ask him details about the incident the witness has a heart attack and dies. Would the rabbi accept this testimony? (We will take the halachic rules out of the equation, only according to common sense).
3. Is there a difference if I ask to know a simple fact like what time it is, which has a low chance of being wrong, or if I ask to know a fact that is less easy to ascertain, for example a complex scientific observation that I know has a high possibility of being wrong. How much would the rabbi trust, even the most faithful person in the world, in such a scientific observation that was made only once? I'm sure that in general the Rabbi believes in scientific observations, but I doubt that the Rabbi would believe a single observation made on a complex matter that could be mistaken. Also regarding revelation, let's say I generally believe that there is such a thing, but the revelation in which the Torah was given happened only once to one person only (even if at first there was a mass revelation, the revelation in which the Torah was given was only to Moses). And the Torah is a super complex matter in which hundreds of mistakes can be made.

We repeat ourselves. The prophet comes against the backdrop of statements in the Torah that there will be prophets. If you believe in the Torah, this definitely strengthens your a priori trust in the prophet you meet.
1. Be impressed and decide.
2. Maybe so. Depends on my impression of him.
3. It doesn't matter at all. Whether it's a mistake or a lie, for both it depends on your impression. That's how you make decisions in every field, including here.

Does impression = gut feeling?

You could call it that. Although that's an understatement. But without it you don't make any decisions.