Carl Abbott

Temporal difference (TD) learning is a large part of what really goes on under the hood even as we think we are making ‘free choices’.  Technically speaking, this is a way of learning by bootstrapping from the current estimate of the benefit-cost value of circumstances in progress. This process samples the environment and carries out […]

The will to survive incorporates a kind of natural sense of expectation or anticipation… a time-sensitive need.  Although, a better word for this impulse may be survival ‘keenness’. It drives all living things to go forth, to hunt and gather. In a sense, this causes sorrow for all living things. (See Buddha’s Truths Pertain To […]

I can’t end without a final word on need, the offspring of fear. Fear is the mover and shaker behind all life’s doings. A solid understanding of this primal emotion will help make sense of the rest. If the previous A final word on fear section didn’t suffice, a few of these observations on fear […]

Need stood out this morning as the driving force behind those birds, us, and every creature in between. If you’ve read this book, you know fear and need are the fundamental principles underlying many of my observations. In the case of Homo sapiens, need + thought = desire and fear + thought = worry. Those […]