Is Epicurus the father of Reinforcement Learning?

TL;DR

This paper explores the philosophical connections between Epicurean hedonism and Reinforcement Learning, demonstrating how Epicurus's ideas relate to the RL objective function and the Bellman equation.

Contribution

It constructs an RL-like objective function from Epicurean philosophy and discusses its relation to classical philosophical views and RL concepts.

Findings

Epicurean hedonism aligns with RL objective functions

The Bellman equation has philosophical parallels in Epicurean thought

Plato and Aristotle's views are also loosely connected to RL

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.