I prefer to give teams of a sufficiently high level the name of 'symbols.' Mind you, this sense of the word has some significant differences from the usual sense. My 'symbols' are active subsystems of a complex system, and they are composed of lower-level active subsystems.... They are therefore quite different from passive symbols, external to the system, such as letters of the alphabet or musical notes, which sit there immobile waiting for an active system to process them.

• symbols