scopal affairsIndividuals of Ancestry
A thousand individuals with Big Five profiles move, pair and pass on their traits. The viewer plays the run and shows each individual's descent.
An agent simulation of descent, pairing and personality. Each individual carries a Big Five profile (OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and moves through a three-dimensional space whose edges wrap around. Individuals nearby influence one another; in the model this shifts their effective personality. Pairs form by a chemistry that prefers similarity or complement in each dimension; parents, children and siblings do not pair. Children inherit a blend of their parents' values, with random changes added.
The run shown is precomputed: 1000 founders, 600 time steps, random seed 42, 2736 individuals in total across six generations. The viewer colours by generation, founder line or personality profile, turns and zooms the space and plays the run. Clicking an individual highlights its ancestors and shows each founder's share in it. The run can be recorded as a video.
The simulation core is a deterministic program written in Rust: the same seed gives the same run. The viewer shows precomputed runs.
Limits of the model: it has no sex, inheritance averages the parents' values, and all individuals die after the same lifespan. Big Five describes personality statistically; heritability and choice of partner are greatly simplified here. The work is a model calculation and makes no statement about real people.