No reason justifies disbelief.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, yeah, but once you accept that we can guess right outside of and without the use of sensory experience you're wondering about the reliability of guessing, not the validity of intuition as a basis for knowledge, and you've already accepted that empiricism is not the basis of knowledge in doing so.

You’ve lost me a bit here. Explain it to me like I’m..ya know...me. 😛

NP.  Empiricism is a position that all knowledge is ultimately derived from sense experience.  If there is any knowledge that we can or do possess that isn't based on sense experience, such as knowledge derived from intuition, then empiricism is false.  We can use disparaging terms like "guessing" to describe intuition..and we probably do that as shorthand for our opinion that it's not reliable, and it may not be, but even if 99.99% of our intuitions were wrong, the remaining .01% still has the heft to discredit the claim empiricism makes.  

How can we ever possibly distinguish between acurate intuition and lucky guessing?  I was certain my first born was going to be a boy.  I walked out of our twelve week ultrasound certain he was a boy.  We didn’t find out until months later of course, that I was right.  Did I use accurate intuition to acquire non-empirical knowledge about the sex of my unborn?  Or was it a lucky guess? That he was a boy after all would lead many to say that my intuition gave me true knowledge.  But if he had been a girl, then I guess I didn’t know after all, did I? And, if all correct intuitions that lead to knowledge are simply lucky guesses...then...how on earth can any rational person consider guessing to be the true foundation of knowledge? I mean...?

It's a good question, isn't it?  We find ourselves facing the same question with empirical knowledge.  How can we distinguish between accurate and inaccurate intuition, how can we distinguish between accurate and inaccurate sense experience?  Most would offer deduction in either case...or any of a number of other methodological ways of organizing our thoughts.     

Describing accurate intuition as a lucky guess leaves open the door for accurate sense experience to be, equally, a lucky guess.  I could, after all, look to my left and see a fairy outside the window.  I'm lucky that I don't..because if I did, then I would very likely be wrong about the issue of whether or not fairies are outside my window.  Ultimately, this weakest form of the other than empirical doesn't posit that we are or can be certain, that it will always be possible to distinguish between accurate intuitions -or- accurate experiences and inaccurate ones, it doesn't even make the claim that intuition is the foundation of all knowledge, or that a nominally rational person would have to accept a conclusion derived from intuition....it merely seeks to add intuition to the possible sources of knowledge.  It only establishes, if accepted, that the claim of empiricism is wrong.  

What I’m trying to say is that there is no meaningful difference between the concept of a not-real thing, and a real thing, because concepts draw from empirical data. A dog is real. We have empirical knowledge of dogs. The concept of a unicorn is real. We have empirical knowledge of the current parts and features of existing creatures that our physical brains use to imagine a unicorn.  Without empiricism there is no imagining of a unicorn. I would say that that empirical knowledge is no less empirical than my empirical knowledge of dogs. The concept of a unicorn is not real in some special, different, metaphysical way. 

Fair enough, that may be the case...it may be that intuition is a sort of back-of-the-house empirical assessment.  That we're not conscious of the process, only the conclusion, and due to this it presents itself as something other than what it actually is.  That latter bit isn't a revelation for either of us, it's just worth noting that this particular notion which could defeat intuitionism does so by calling the accuracy of empirical contents into question.  

Intuition certainly seems different than sense experience, even if it isn't.  

Haha, well, I was being tongue-in-cheek about the relationship between my hair color and my...flakiness.  But, I can definitely confirm there exists physical, empirical evidence of my flakiness, lol. I mean...I could list a lot of examples, and there are probably plenty that I could corroborate with documents, lol.  But, then I’d have to hide from the forums in shame for a month. 😂 No, I don’t need to rely on intuition to know I’m a flake. The evidence has lead me to no other reasonable conclusion. I’ve made my peace with it. 😏

OFC, OFC, and that it was humor is clear, still, this example is a bit like the manticore from before.  A vernacular substitution of flakiness for blondeness.  If we made up some fantastic term it would show that we're not answering the question so much as shifting around the terms.  This is as good a place as any to bring up the next other than empirical proposition.  Innate knowledge.  The notion that there are some concepts known to us as a consequence of our rational nature.  You mention above that you've surveyed a long list of individual empirical instances of knowledge in order to arrive at the conclusion of your flakiness.  We've already discussed, however, that no number of individual instances of empirical knowledge can support a necessary truth in and of themselves.  You aren't necessarily flaky on account of those observations.  The classic example is that watching the sun rise a thousand times won't make it necessarily true that the sun rises tomorrow.  

So, how do we rescue necessary truth, and how do we contextualize what we take to be true in light of that?  Perhaps, instead of arriving at the conclusion that you are flaky, that flakiness exists, based on observation, you have an innate concept of flakiness, and every individual instance of empirical observation allows you to recognize some action as a representative of that concept?  If this were the case, then innate knowledge would be the foundation, and empirical observation would be additional verifying information.  We might say, "ah, but someone explained what flakiness was, to me" - and sure...but just as before, their having explained it to you might have done little more than provide you with the vernacular for some concept you already held.  "Ah, "flakiness", we say to ourselves...that's what we call this thing I am !".

But, I’m saying I can’t ever know that as a fact.  I may intuit that I exist, but it might not be a fact, like someone intuits their unborn baby is a boy, until they learn it’s a girl.

Well, I wouldn't worry to much about certainty, at least not at this point, because certainty like that is a very high bar for knowledge of any kind that carries a monumental amount of baggage.  But, since we're concerned with the accuracy of intuition and the worry that it may amount to little more than guessing, lets instead consider that your knowledge of self is innate.  That, due to your nature, you cannot help but know that you exist.   That your every empirical observation proceeds from the innate truth of your existence as a being that can observe.  If you didn't already know that you existed, then what, exactly, should the phrase "I see a red ball" be taken to mean?  There's an "I" in there, right at the start.

This could place some knowledge, like knowledge of self, in the category of a priori knowledge.  Independent of sense experience... perhaps, even, the basis -of- sense experience.