TABLE OF CONTENTS Peter J. Bentley, University College London, UK
Fractal proteins are a new evolvable method of mapping genotype to phenotype through a developmental process, where genes are expressed into proteins comprised of subsets of the Mandelbrot set. The resulting network of gene and protein interactions can be designed by evolution to produce specific patterns, which in turn can be used to solve problems. This chapter introduces the fractal development algorithm in detail and describes the use of fractal gene regulatory networks for learning a robot path through a series of obstacles. The results indicate the ability of this system to learn regularities in solutions and automatically create and use modules.
Life is complex. This is true in the chemical interactions of proteins and genes within a single cell, or in the cellular interactions in a multicellular organism. While evolution is mostly to blame for this, there can be little doubt that complexity could not arise if the vast intricacies of molecular interactions and physical forces were not present. Open-ended evolution (evolution in which solutions get progressively more complex) relies on the right kind of genetic representation in the right kind of environment. In nature, this is DNA a molecule that relies on chemical interactions in order to function.
Translating these ideas into computer science is...
