Non-Player Characters

Spirit objects which are controlled by the computer are called Non-Player Characters. This is a purely artificial distinction, as no such distinction is drawn between human- and computer-controlled characters in the game code.

The Biology of Cognition

The structural elements of the functioning nervous system have not yet been defined, and it will probably be apparent when they are defined that they must be expressed in terms of invariants of relative activities between neurons, in some manner embodied in invariants of relations of interconnections, and not in terms of separate anatomical entities. In man-made systems this conceptual difficulty has not been so apparent because the system of relations (the theory) that integrates the parts that the describer (the observer) defines is provided by him, and is specified in his domain of interactions; as a consequence, these relations appear so obvious to the observer that he treats them as arising from the observation of the parts, and deludes himself, denying that he provides the unformulated theory that embodies the structure of the system which he projects on them. In a self-referring system like a living system the situation is different: the observer can only make a description of his interactions with parts that he defines through interactions, but thes eparts lie in his cognitive domain only. Unless he explicitly or implicitly provides a theory that embodies the relational structure of the system, and conceptually supersedes his description of the components, he can never understand it. Accordingly, the full explanation of the organization of the nervous system (and of the organism) will not arise from any particular observation or detailed description and enumeration of its parts, but rather like any explanation, from the synthesis, conceptual or concrete, of a system that does what the nervous system (or the organism) does.

--Humberto Maturana, Biology of Cognition

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See also

— Ged The Greys Hain - 23 May 2000