Are our lives an MDP?

Those who have a machine learning background might be aware of Markov’s decision process (MDP), which is a very important concept in reinforcement learning. For those who are hearing this word for the first time, Markov’s Processes are those processes in which the present state is fully independent of the past states; hence, the present state holds all historical information. This blog describes this process from a philosophical point of view of human life.

Human beings are inherently complex. In a lifetime, we make an uncountable number of decisions. Whether to learn a musical instrument, read a book, watch a particular movie, etc. All these actions make us different from each other. Many times, we make many wrong decisions that might haunt us throughout our lives. Letting go of those memories from our past mistakes is not so easy. This affects our personality so badly that our personality and attitude towards everything start to change. We hamper our mental growth, which might drive us to an abyss.

However, if we start to forgive ourselves and consider Markov’s process to implement in our lives, this might reduce the burden from the past. As Markov’s process doesn’t carry the baggage of the past, we have to give up on the burden and mistakes that have been made in the past. Markov’s process teaches us to live in the present. Moreover, it also inspires us not to get overwhelmed by thinking about the future too much. To make the future optimal, we need to take the single best action for today. Repeating the same strategy of taking the best action daily will converge towards an optimal future for us.

Hence, it is time to forgive ourselves for the past and start taking the best action for today; the path towards a beautiful future will be forged automatically.