The analogy made hints at my point. You decide whether to adjust your beliefs based on if you find them useful. So there is utility involved. There are many complex forces that may influence your decision, and it is not automatically done based on some obvious designated features. Personalities may clash. People often take emotion and feeling into account when making complex decisions - salespeople know this. Consider the use of reverse psychology: it plays on people's pride to get them to assent. Or the suite of logical fallacies that plague most thinking.

The abyss between conceptual beliefs and truth can also be seen in the choice of the medium. An argument uses words. So if we’re discussing some external concept we are likely using a substitute medium (words referring to experiences). The comparison is not being done automatically on the subject itself. If we’re talking about dogs, I’m comparing your linguistic ideas to mine, not actual dogs I see before me. There is an abstraction involved. The topology argument would only apply to the subject matter itself, not the abstractions, no matter how representative they may seem.

Even the belief that "this word is representative enough to act as a substitute" is a judgment call. Judgment again, implies utility - different contexts necessitate different types or levels of representation. Language is too far from the truth to let us objectively swap between them.

BTW I like the direction you're taking in general. I'm only adding these comments because you seem like the type that appreciates straightforward, in depth critique. That's why I engaged :)