NON-LINEAR GENETIC PROCESS FOR DATA ENCODING AND FOR SOLVING PROBLEMS USING AUTOMATICALLY DEFINED FUNCTIONS

An apparatus and method for solving problems using automatic function definitions, for solving problems using recursion and for performing data encoding. The present invention includes an apparatus and process for creating a population and then evolving that population to generate a result. When solving problems using automatic function definition, the apparatus and process initially creates a population of entities. Each of said entities has sub-entities of internally and externally invoked sub-entities. The externally invoked sub-entities are capable of having actions, invocations of sub-entities which are invoked internally, and material. Also, each sub-entity which is invoked internally is capable of including actions, invocations of internally invocable sub-entities, material provided to the externally invocable sub-entity, and material. The population is then evolved to generate a solution to the problem. When using the process to solve problems using recursion, the entities in the population are constructed in such a manner as explicitly to represent the termination predicate, the base case and the non-base case of the recursion. Each entity has access to a name denoting that entity so as allow recursive references. The population is then evolved to generate a solution to the problem. When encoding a set of data values into a procedure capable of approximating those data values, the apparatus and process initially creates a population of entities. The population is then evolved to generate a solution to the problem.