So...guess I'm the new guy

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

Mathematics itself can't be said to be metaphysical. But the corroboration between our understanding of logic and mathematics and the tendency of the observable world to correspond to this logical framework is a metaphysical assumption.

We observe it, but we have no reason to think that it is universal. Yet we work on the metaphysical assumption that it is universal. That any hypothesis or discovery is fundamentally logically or mathematically sound.

The concept of the metaphysical by its very nature defys proof. Mathmatics is a system that is applicable in the real world and its results can be recreated time after time. Thats proof that its more than the imaginings of any one man. If I take one apple and put it in a basket with three apples I apply the numerical value of four apples to the contents of that basket. Thats basic mathematics. Its a system we use in our day to day lives and it demonstrably works. Would you debate this?
Until we find an instance in which it does not work and cannot be applied to a physical, tangible situation then why should such a tried and tested system be cast aside?

The concept of the metaphysicals chief characteristic is that it requires no proof because it is supposedly beyond our means of detecting it. I am not for one second saying this is an acceptable standard to go by but that is part of its definition.

If we follow your logic we must deduce your definition of the metaphysical entails anything conceptual goes under its header. This is evidently not the case and it would be sheer nonsense to claim as such.

So I put it to you once again; what metaphysical assumptions are made by science?

See the part I bolded? That's the important part. Repeatability is NOT a measure of validity.

You might observe 100 white swans every time you look at a lake. You may observe one million white swans every time you look across a lake. You may observe a quadrillion white swans wading across a hypothetical lake.

But that IN NO WAY justifies an assumption that the very next swan will be white, nor does it justify an assumption that there are only white swans in the universe.

This is precisely the problem I am referring to. The problem of induction. Look it up.