Consider that the lower orders of integration of life are energetic molecular arrangements, then genetically controlled factories which make which make up the c

Consider that the lower orders of integration of life are energetic molecular arrangements, then genetically controlled factories which make which make up the components of cells that in turn give rise to cellular replication, then cellular arrangements and multicellular organisms. The creatures you are hoping to simulate which seem to be at the level of abstraction of a nematode, IOW a model of a very simple body with a brain of a few hundred neurons, operate in environments so diffuse and rarified that superficially they don't seem striking behaviorally, even as they do the stuff you expect simple animals to do. A casual onlooker will not be impressed by the richness of the world of the nematode. So one challenge is you could be on the right track but find appropriate results boring. But it may be that the best you can do with a simulation is make arrangements seem interesting, because there may be an entropic blockade to stimulating life: life may be so efficient in its manifestation of degrees of abstractions, interactions, fabrication, layering, and interdependencies-- its complexity-- that organization of models using electronic computation devices can't get within many orders of magnitude of life's dynamical density and therefore simulation of life is inherently impractical. IOW you can get from life to computers, but entropy prevents getting from computers to life. In life, is there any clear distinction between machine and code? Genomics suggests there might be, but so far fiddling with genomes is well known only for edits of taxonomically superficial traits. Has anyone shown edits that give rise to a new subspecies-- much less a new genus? Idk... but it wouldn't surprise me to find the answer is be no, and that epigenetic factors might inhibit any approach to editing new lifeforms into existence. Is life is fundamentally emergent, without possibility of construction? I see a definitional hazard; that we may lack the language or cognitive capacity to deal with life's dynamics. These may be off limits. Or maybe not?