> whether a hot dog is or is not a sandwich is surely dramatically different from whether Pluto is a planet.

Not really even a little bit, for all the reasons already discussed, as I will again explain:

> With Pluto I take it at a broad level of description people are looking at whatever data, trying to systematize it in accordance with whatever empirical/logical criteria

Nope. Now, granted, because the issue with Pluto is a very limited one in several ways, your mistaken notion of systemization is closer to being realistic. But it highlights the inadequacy of that model at the same time.

First, in that case there undoubtably is an explicit authority involved. And in theory they are only dispassionately determining what category and object belongs in. But what happens in real life? Rather than describe the issue as "whether astronomers call Pluto a planet or a dwarf planet" becomes "whether Pluto is a planet", with 'dwarf' planet being a 'demotion' (whether something is a "dwarf" is no different than whether it is a "sandwich", syntax be damned) and a tempestuous argument because it involves whether school children will learn the same "nine planets" their parents did.

Words aren't words in science. They're merely alphabetic symbols for mathematical quantities or logic categories chosen to resemble words, effectively as a mnemonic device. Science works well, because math (aka logic) works well, for physical objects, which can't intentionally change their behavior because they don't like what someone said. Whether you should care about what a scientist says depends on whether the math works out, it never actually has anything to do with the meaning of the words as descriptors for what they measured to produce quantities for their calculations. Unless you believe scientists are priests who's moral dictates must be followed, they are not in charge of what words we use.

Now the problem is that the word "science" is, like "finger", a word. Whether something is "science" actually depends entirely on why someone might call it science, or why someone might not. We again are taught that there is a "concept" or "category" the label confers and by which we can infer validity and certainty in an absolute sense, and there are, of course, good reasons for that notion.. But they revolve around the justifications for calling something science (the process, the empiricism, the mathematical predictions of future objectively quantifiable results) not any magic power the 'label' has. 'Science', ultimately, is a word, and like all words it isn't a label for a logical category of "thing", it is an identifier and descriptor who's validity depends on whether it is recognized as accurate within a particular context, not any existential ability to be calculated True of False in a universal sense. People who are emotionally certain that language is (or must be, or wouldn't work unless it was, or would benefit by being) a formal system then invent new 'categories' like soft science to maintain their faith in their assumed conclusion when their initial argument can no longer be defended. Is psychology actually science or a scholarly tradition of myths? There are philosophers (themselves assuming conclusions and wishing dearly for philosophy itself to be an analytic science) who insist that all science is myth-building, and only consciousness truly exists.

>Thus the 5 is not a number example. I imagine you’d be reticent to acquiesce in that alleged revelation?

I believe you really mean whether 5 (or any other number) is real, rather than whether 5 is a number. I am very familiar with the "located in time and space" criteria. I would not describe my position as reticent, acquiescence, or allegation, but actual revelation: it is the same question as whether a hot dog is a sandwich. As an object, all sandwiches can be located in time and space. As a category of thing, "sandwich" does not occur in time or space. Whether a restaurant puts it in the "sandwiches" section of their menu is as potentially trivial and potentially consequential as whether astronomers regard Pluto as a planet, or whether school children learn to recite that categorization as if it was a fact.

> I guess one thing I suspect is that they don’t care much about being faithful to a common concept of planet or finger or whatever.

They definitely do; their entire worldview would unravel (according to the dogma of their faith, although in real life the change would be less dramatic and more beneficial, since their worldview is inaccurate in this regard) if words weren't empty symbols used as arbitrary labels for "concepts" and logical categories for "concepts" which are themselves "concepts". This explains the supposedly revelatory explanation of the status of a thumb as a finger that initiated your dive down the rabbit hole of existential epistemology because it rocked your worldview.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.