MMP.8.SD:10 - Architectural Rationale

The construction begins with available histories because they expose the actual information constraint. A state is then a justified reduction of the decision problem. Starting from a convenient list of current features reverses that order and can hide lost memory.

Prediction contributes the distribution or set needed to describe a continuation. Decision modeling additionally specifies allowable actions and how consequences are accumulated and compared. In :5.3, identical transition knowledge supports different policies after a change of goal. In :5.2, identical diagnostic accuracy has different value after a change of timing.

A full history tree is a serious alternative to state compression. For a small problem it is often the clearest and cheapest model. A fixed plan is adequate when future information cannot improve the selected comparison; the delayed diagnostic shows such a boundary. For larger problems, a justified compact state makes repeated questions reusable by computational methods.

The continuation relation describes the mathematical problem consumed by those methods. It does not prescribe a solver or the worth criterion. This keeps model construction usable in physical operations, investigation, computational work and method design without replacing their subject methods.