Slime Mold, Economist

[elfs]

From a NY Times article on slime molds' capacity to optimize food acquisition based upon the relative value of food deposits:

Psychologists have found that the value we put on things depends greatly on the other things we can choose from. Humans and slime molds alike choose according to relative values, rather than trying to calculate absolute ones.[emphasis mine]

From an article in The American Interest about Adam Smith and Charles Darwin:

Adam Smith's invisible hand narrative assumes that individual success depends primarily on absolute income, not relative income [emphasis mine]. ... When economists try to model human motivation in an attempt to understand how markets work, we adopt stick-figure simplifications. Traditional economic models assume that the satisfaction people take from consumption depends only on the absolute amount of it. Yet compelling evidence suggests that relative consumption also matters.

Relative position still matters, often for purely instrumental reasons. When you go for a job interview, for example, you want to dress presentably, but the standards for looking good are almost purely relative ... Explicit recognition of the importance of relative position completely transforms our understanding of how markets function. Adding this simple feature reveals the key to understanding why the invisible hand often breaks down, even if consumers are fully informed and interact with employers and sellers under conditions of perfect competition.

Conclusion: If one could develop a physical simulation of the market in a laboratory space, slime molds would more accurately depict the iteration of the market better than any mathematical model.