That’s exactly what led me to the question at first.
For reflexes, I would call it “data processing”, as “thinking” is a bit too involved for this level of quick simple reactions.
As of spawning copies, they may not be wholly copies. Think in terms of growing an organ (which may or may not be physically attached to you) specific for a task and then absorbing it back or disposing of it when not needed anymore. Kind of like constructor/destructor call on a software object. Loss of any such organ/agent is then nonconsequential as new can be grown/copied/spawned/fork()ed at will.
