When I was a young child, I naïvely believed anything I experienced or that anyone told me as true. As I started adolescence, I started to question that, and realised that people who tell me stuff might be mistaken, or intentionally lying to me. I became very interested in optical illusions, and realised my senses could be fooled too. I had to rely on measurable, repeatable truth that scientific experts had written in pop science books.
Then I thought about simulations, being in a story (like in Sophie's World), gods, and every other possibility that the entire world I experience is not real and is created to test me, to observe me, indifferent to me and I'm there by accident - whichever it was, I couldn't believe for sure that anyone besides me really existed, or anything I knew through my senses. Only my logical reasoning could be trusted. I am doubting therefore I exist, but I couldn't know anything else for sure.
Until recently, I realised when I was ruminating one time, and thinking about which is better: truth or happiness. Most of the times I'd ruminated, I knew I'd come to the conclusion that I'd rather be right than happy. I had logic to back this up, it's more important to know the truth because then I'm happy about being right. But when I'd been happier, I thought being happy was more important than being right - after all, what's the point of being right if it doesn't bring you pleasure, seeking pleasure and avoiding suffering being the whole goal of life?
I realised that what I thought was logical reasoning to support my conclusion wasn't logical at all. It was a rationalisation to support whichever conclusion made me happier at the time. When, for chemical reasons in my brain, I was happy, I wanted to remain happy. So I'd subconsciously convinced myself that I had logic to convince myself that happiness is preferable. When my hormone levels were low so I was feeling down, telling myself that at least I feel better because I know the truth is a way of coping.
And I realised that when my 'logical' reasoning is just a rationalisation for an emotional state caused by brain chemicals and my body, I can't trust any 'logical' argument my brain thinks of. I don't exist because I'm thinking, I exist because I have an innate sense of existing. So therefore, I can't trust anything I think is logical. But wait, that there is a logical statement! So I can't trust it either! And so on... aaaAAARGH!
The more I try to find truth, the less I find I know. I somehow get even more agnostic than I thought it was possible to be, I at least thought, 'Alright, I have no idea what the universe is, but as an external observer I know that I exist.'
I am no longer an external observer! My observations about how my hormones and body affects my emotions, which in turn affect how infuriated I am at the fact that I don't know stuff, that I don't have free will - not the other way around - means I can't even think anymore, as my brain is part of the compromised system. I am compromised.
The more I learn, the less I know.
Idk I trust logic well, but not "my" logic - but a more formal logic system. I certainly never trust something as silly and malleable as my own observations and gut feelings and conclusions.
The things I see and causational relationships my brain tries to churn out could really be anything, like for instance with the toupee fallacy, it requires effort to figure against it and maintain at least an aspiration towards some degree of intellectual rigor.
If my reasoning is sound (not fallacious) and is based on valid premises (such as on sound established facts determined via the scientific method), then my conclusions from that process must also be valid propositions, as opposed to nonsense e.g. ("Sky is blue therefore it will rain next Tuesday").
I can speculate upon this information and guess as to theories, or I can act upon this information - again - as a mere guess if I'm sufficiently confident and hold it as a justified but untested belief.
Or if I wanted to really know the truth I could attempt to deduce it further via conceptual and other forms of analysis to seek other explanations (e.g. via Occam's Razors) until I arrive at a hypothesis that can be empirically & scientifically tested, and if this hypothesis is proven via repeated observation then I consider this as meeting the criteria for me to personally hold it as a Justified True Belief that may or may not be also Knowledge.
In either case though it's unproductive to dismiss a JTB as above, if it is a theory with predictive power (it's observations can be applied to other adjacent things and hold true for them) or - if we're very lucky - can even be extrapolated to other subjects as a principle - then we should hold it preciously and defend it from ignorant attacks because many such theories have been used to massively improve the quality of life for humanity worldwide from medicine to engineering miracles and infrastructure and civilization that has literally made life possible where for many of us it wouldn't have been and improved it endlessly for others.
(I'm near sighted, have ADHD and am trans, I would've been in a heckuva lot more pain without civilization and technology for instance, I often consider myself as a partially artificial being where a lot of important things in my body did not emerge "naturally" whether it's my very physical traits, sex hormones, genitalia or dopamine or serotonin that gets me to actually do things).
I think skepticism is valid and we must be harsh towards even foundational beliefs and especially those that in any way are formed by experiences of the senses rather than reason and evidence, but I don't think it's useful or productive to throw your hands up in the air and say truth can't be known or that we know nothing.
Maybe that statement is true, but this is an unfalsifiable proposition and as such is useless to us with our current reasoning devices, it is much more productive to accept and learn that being wrong is part of the road to being somewhere near correct, which is a momentous achievement even in fairly banal circumstances if you think about it, given the options and possibilities out there.
I was recently upset by my girlfriend when she told me atoms aren't held together by gravity but by some insane bullshit known as the "weak force" and my archenemy in every attempt to understand anything about the natural world - electromagnetism. God I hate electromagnetism. Inductance is magic.
Why was I upset by this? I'm not a physicist, I was in the lowest set for science at school and in fact failed both that and mathematics, idk, just an emotional irrational reaction, but after a bit I calmed down, and admitted I was wrong - and in retrospect I realize that in the grand scheme of things my reasoning towards that previously held belief was full of non-sequitur extrapolations and reasoning by analogy and other nonsense™️.
I'm not philosophy major or remotely knowledgeable about epistemology, so anyone please feel free to correct me on anything here including my usage (and likely abusage) of the field's terminology.
Thanks for that response, it was really long and thoughtful, and I appreciate the time and effort taken.
(This is not an attack on you as a trans person but an attack on your reasoning)
You say you are trans and that you don't trust your gut feelings and subjective observations?
Isn't gender dysmorphia based on internal feelings and observations?