Answers.Body: <blockquote>
    <p>Assuming that continuing means non terminating, what does non-episodic or episodic domain mean ?</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Non-episodic means the same as continuing. The quote you found is not listing two separate domains, the word "continuing" is slightly redundant. I expect the author put it in there to emphasise the meaning, or to cover two common ways of describing such environments.</p>
  
  <p>Episodic domain problems are ones that terminate, or otherwise naturally split into groups of time steps that can be considered separately.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2020-04-25T14:51:29.760Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2020-04-25T14:51:29.760Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Neil Slater
Body: <p>I was reading about the temporal difference (TD) learning and I read that:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>TD handles continuing, non-episodic domains</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Assuming that continuing means non-terminating, what does non-episodic or episodic domain mean?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-04-26T00:50:21.213Z
Comments.Text: Here's another relevant post [https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/271356/82135](https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/271356/82135).
Comments.UserDisplayName: nbro
Tags: <reinforcement-learning><terminology><temporal-difference-methods><environment>
Title: What are episodic and non-episodic domains in reinforcement learning?
UserDisplayName: devidduma
ThreadText: # What are episodic and non-episodic domains in reinforcement learning?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-04-25)
  
  I was reading about the temporal difference (TD) learning and I read that:
  
  > TD handles continuing, non-episodic domains
  
  Assuming that continuing means non-terminating, what does non-episodic or episodic domain mean?
  
  **Tags:** reinforcement-learning, terminology, temporal-difference-methods, environment
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Here's another relevant post [https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/271356/82135](https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/271356/82135).  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2020-04-25. Score: 2 | Accepted answer
  
  > Assuming that continuing means non terminating, what does non-episodic or episodic domain mean ?
  
  Non-episodic means the same as continuing. The quote you found is not listing two separate domains, the word "continuing" is slightly redundant. I expect the author put it in there to emphasise the meaning, or to cover two common ways of describing such environments.
  
  Episodic domain problems are ones that terminate, or otherwise naturally split into groups of time steps that can be considered separately.
  
  
  ---
  
  