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General Classifications
Non-sentient
A fairly obvious classification. Non-sentients are creatures
that lack a sense of self or identity, and have no inherent
ability to learn or act outside of a genetically determined pattern.
Insects, invertibrates, and similar creatures fall into this
category. Animals are not considered 'non-sentient' as they
definitely have a sense of preference and will. They generally
follow instinct, but most have the potential to learn and
adapt to their environment.
Construct
In the realms, there are many magical and technological means
that can result in a synthetic organism capable of exhibiting
basic behavior. Simple robots and magically created golems
fall into this classification. These creatures are not technically
alive, and may or may not be organic in nature. They, like insects,
generally have a pre-determined set of behaviors that allow them
to interact with the environment. These behaviors can be so elaborate
that they simulate a kind of 'intelligence' but, in general, lack
the flexible action/reaction patterns one finds in naturally evolving
semi-sentient creatures.
Semi-sentient
Semi-sentience is an interesting distinction. Many colony type
creatures give the appearance of intelligence because of the
highly evolved nature of their genetic programming. Creatures
like ants and bees have threat responses, they hunt for food and
resources, and sometimes can utilize the environment in ways that
animals cannot. Aside from these and few other species-specific
behaviors they exhibit no other recognizable intelligence.
In general animals fall into the classification of semi-sentient.
The basic definition being that any creature that exhibits adaptive
behavior that exceeds genetic programming. By this definition,
many kinds of fish and reptiles do not qualify.
All-but-sentient
Reserved for creatures that have everything but the recognized
facets of identity ('I-think-therefore-I-am'). Rather than
fall into a particular camp with gray-area creatures, this
category was created for them. Often, identity is associated
with the ability to communicate—and while certain creatures
do possess a means of sending messages—there is considerable
debate as to whether those messages constitute language.
At the risk of upsetting people, one could say that infants are
not sentient because they lack many of the refinements attributed
to true sentience. However, if one accepts that an infant is
sentient, then creatures like chimps, gorillas, dolphins and whales
which all exhibit intelligence must also be considered sentient.
Thus for purposes of the realms such creatures (infants included)
are considered all-but-sentient.
Synthetic sentience
This distinction is made for organisms that did not grow and
evolve naturally. In the Realms, there are many artificial
constructs which are indistinguishable (in behavior) from
evolved life. The only way these creatures differ from
natural creatures is in the presence of a lifespark, spirit,
or soul—and even that distinction is problematic.
Sentients
Natural creatures with adaptive behavioral patterns, some kind
of language or communicating medium, and at least some kind of
rudimentary culture or self identity.
Super-sentients
Creatures that exhibit not only the facets of sentience, but
a broader relationship with the cosmos and their physical bodies.
Savants whose life essences are tao based rather than spirit or
soul based have a far more concentrated life persistence, and can even
exist outside of a physical shell for extended periods of time.
The intelligence of such creatures is not truly within their
physical shell, it is instead housed in the lifespark which
animates them.
The 'super' part of the sentience of such creatures stems from
the fact that they can inhabit, and cohabit with, other creatures
so as to extend their identity beyond their physical shell. In
simpler terms, they can possess and sometimes control other entities
by insinuating their lifespark into those shells.
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