system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is computer science actually a science according to Karl Popper?

I have a very basic understanding of Popper's philosophy regarding science, let alone from other thinkers. My question is weather computer science can be considered a science or metaphysics according to Popper's ideas.

For starters cs is very mathematical in its nature, in that it uses strictly mathematical procedures to study its objects and constructs (ex: Turing machines). In that sense cs is part of maths which is part of metaphysics. But if cs is metaphysics then how can its conclusions be so elegantly used in real world applications of its theory?

For example, in software testing we can either do a "Popperian" testing and simply test as many problematic inputs as possible and then determine that until this point of testing, the software is not-incorrect (1) (since we can never be sure it is correct), **or** we can use formal verification methods and state that under a particular representation of the algorithm, it is mathematically proven (ie: without any doubt) that the algorithm **is** correct.

I guess that the answer strictly according to Popper is no, since Popper is about empirical knowledge, but are there any other thinkers that would consider cs a science?

(1) Also, isn't this double negation "not in-correct" equivalent to "correct"?
gpt
> (1) Also, isn't this double negation "not in-correct" equivalent to "correct"?

For Popper, no - hypotheses can be well-corroborated if they survive many empirical tests, but he does explicitely not use the word 'correct' or 'true'.