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arXiv · 1710.04582

Is Epicurus the father of Reinforcement Learning?

Eleni Vasilaki
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Abstract

The Epicurean Philosophy is commonly thought as simplistic and hedonistic. Here I discuss how this is a misconception and explore its link to Reinforcement Learning. Based on the letters of Epicurus, I construct an objective function for hedonism which turns out to be equivalent of the Reinforcement Learning objective function when omitting the discount factor. I then discuss how Plato and Aristotle 's views that can be also loosely linked to Reinforcement Learning, as well as their weaknesses in relationship to it. Finally, I emphasise the close affinity of the Epicurean views and the Bellman equation.

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Eleni Vasilaki. 2017-10-12. Is Epicurus the father of Reinforcement Learning?. https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.04582

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