Locating Values in the Space of Possibilities

Where do values live in thought? A straightforward answer is that we (or our brains) make decisions using explicit value representations which are our values. Recent work applying reinforcement learning to decision-making and planning suggests that, more specifically, we may represent both the instrumental expected value of actions as well as the intrinsic reward of outcomes. In this paper, I argue that identifying value with either of these representations is incomplete. For agents such as humans and other animals, there is another place where reward can be located in thought: the division of the space of possibilities or state space.