A Commentary. Another Unsolvable Problem and Axiom of Biology: It Is Impossible to Deduce Cell Properties in an Organism from the Properties of Its Constituent Cells

This brief commentary discusses the problem of unpredictable (“emergent”) properties of biological complex systems that result from the interactions between their constituents. The emphasis is put on principal impossibility of determining the status of a cell within an organism on the basis of data obtained after its isolation from the multicellular system. The current status of research focused on the origin of multicellularity and the challenges that its emergence introduced into the discussion of the evolution of life on Earth, is briefly reviewed. Integration of the available data in the form of an axiom stating that in a multicellular organisms, at each level of organization, properties arise that are unpredictable based on the properties of individual modules and cells, is suggested. The properties of cells in an organism cannot be deduced from the properties of its constituent cells.