Dictionaries don't define complex scientific theories.
Our complicated , bad, wrong , neo-geocentric theory is still a geocentric theory.
Therefore it makes different assertions about the territory than heliocentricism.
Whether something is empiricly unknowable forever is itself unknowable ... it's an acute form of the problem of induction.
it doesn’t matter what's inside it
But that isn't quite the same as say ing that statements about what's inside are meaningless. A statement can be meaningful without mattering. And you have to be able to interpret the meaning, in the ordinary sense, in order to be able to notice that it doesn't matter.
Semantically and ontologically. The dictionary meanings of the words heliocentric and geocentric are opposites, so they assert different things about the territory.
Note that this the default hypothesis. Whatever I just called "dictionary meaning" is what is usually called "meaning" simpliciter.
Attempts to resist this conclusion are based on putting forward non standard definitions of "meaning", which need to because argued for, not just assumed.
You can respond by taking ontological terms as primitive,
That's not what I said. I said that you made a claim based on nothing but intuition, and that a contrary claim based on nothing but intuition is neither better nor worse than it.
Every one of the arguments I’ve put forward clearly applies only to the kinds of ontological statements
The argument that if it has no observable consequences, it is meaningless does not apply to only ontological statements.
You’ll need more than just epicycles to make the geocentric model yield accurate predictions
It takes more than literal epicycles , but there are any number of ways of complicating a theory to meet the facts.
But still—if we could, it will not be different than a correct model
Of course it is different. Heliocentricism says something different about reality than geocentricism.
My problem with ontological statements is they don’t appear to be meaningful.
You certainly started by making a direct appeal to your own intuition. Such an argument can be refuted by intuiting differently.
Those reasons apply to ontological statements and not to other statements.
You don't have any systematic argument to that effect. Other verificationist s might, but you don't.
There's a tradition of justifying the verification principle as an analytical truth, for instance. Your rr invention of verificationism is worse than the original .
don’t significantly undermine the ability to make claims about ontology.
But you shouldn't apply your beliefs to ontological statements . If the problem with ontological statements is that they don't constrain beliefs, it's unreasonable to except other statements that don't constrain beliefs.
Since the argument does not mention probability, it doesn't refute the counterargument that unlikely scenarios involving simulations or multiple universes don't significantly undermine the ability to make claims about ontology.
They're not, because A and B assert different things.