From Flatland to Jupiter: Searching for Rules of Interaction Across Biological Scales

Abstract

In this future-spanning perspective, we examine how an agent-based model could be used to define general rules for interactions across biological systems and evolutionary time. To date, there have been a number of attempts to simulate the emergence of ecological communities using agent-based models of individuals that have evolving traits. Here we speculate whether it is possible to use this computational modeling to simulate self-organizing systems and, importantly, to decipher universal principles that govern biological interactions. This perspective is a thought exercise, meant to extrapolate from current knowledge to how we may make Jupiter-shot leaps to further advance the biosciences in the 21st century.