On Symbols (2000-2009)

"The motion of the mind is conveyed along a cloud of meaning. There is this paradox that we get to meaning only when we strip the meaning from symbols." (David Berlinski, "The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World", 2000)

"A symbol is a mental representation regarding the internal reality referring to its object by a convention and produced by the conscious interpretation of a sign. In contrast to signals, symbols may be used every time if the receiver has the corresponding representation. Symbols also relate to feelings and thus give access not only to information but also to the communicator’s motivational and emotional state. The use of symbols makes it possible for the organism using it to evoke in the receiver the same response it evokes in himself. To communicate with symbols is to use a language." (Lars Skyttner, "General Systems Theory: Ideas and Applications", 2001)

"In the definition of meaning, it is assumed that both the source and receiver have previously coded (and stored) signals of the same or similar referents, such that the messages may have meaning and relate to behaviour. That is, the used symbols must have the same signification for both sender and receiver. If not, the receiver will create a different mental picture than intended by the transmitter. Meaning is generated by individuals in a process of social interaction with a more or less common environment. It is a relation subsisting within a field of experience and appears as an emergent property of a symbolic representation when used in culturally accepted interaction. The relation between the symbolic representation and its meaning is random. Of this, however, the mathematical theory has nothing to say. If human links in the chain of communication are missing, of course no questions of meaning will arise." (Lars Skyttner, "General Systems Theory: Ideas and Applications", 2001)

"A person thinking in the nonverbal mode is actually thinking with the meaning of the language in the form of mental pictures of the concepts and ideas it contains. Nonverbal thought doesn't require literacy. An illiterate person can communicate without knowing what the symbols look like. [...] Literacy, then, is established as the person learns how the symbols look and becomes able to recognize them as representing certain things or concepts." (Ronald D Davis & Eldon M Braun, "The Gift of Learning", 2003)

"Science does not speak of the world in the language of words alone, and in many cases it simply cannot do so. The natural language of science is a synergistic integration of words, diagrams, pictures, graphs, maps, equations, tables, charts, and other forms of visual and mathematical expression. […] [Science thus consists of] the languages of visual representation, the languages of mathematical symbolism, and the languages of experimental operations." (Jay Lemke, "Teaching all the languages of science: Words, symbols, images and actions", 2003)

"I often told the fanatics of realism that there is no such thing as realism in art: it only exists in the mind of the observer. Art is a symbol, a thing conjuring up reality in our mental image. That is why I don't see any contradiction between abstract and figurative art either." (Antoni Tàpies, "Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 – 2003", 2004)

"A symbol is an object, act, or event that conveys meaning to others. Symbols can be considered a rich, non-verbal language that vibrantly conveys the organization’s important values concerning how people relate to one another and interact with the environment" (Richard L Daft & Dorothy Marcic, "Understanding Management" 5th Ed., 2006)

"But because of the way in which depictions represent, there is a correspondence between parts and spatial relations of the representation and those of the object; this structural mapping, which confers a type of resemblance, underlies the way images convey specific content. In this respect images are like pictures. Unlike words and symbols, depictions are not arbitrarily paired with what they represent." (Stephen Kosslyn et al," The Case for Mental Imagery", 2006)

"Imagination has the creative task of making symbols, joining things together in such a way that they throw new light on each other and on everything around them. The imagination is a discovering faculty, a faculty for seeing relationships, for seeing meanings that are special and even quite new." (Thomas Merton, "Angelic Mistakes: The Art of Thomas Merton", 2006)

"[...] the scientific models of concrete things are symbolic rather than iconic: they are systems of propositions, not pictures. Besides, such models are seldom if ever completely accurate, if only because they involve more or less brutal simplifications, such as pretending that a metallic surface is smooth, a crystal has no impurities, a biopopulation has a single predator, or a market is in equilibrium.  These are all fictions. However, they are stylizations rather than wild fantasies. Hence, introducing and using them to account for real existents does not commit us to fictionism, just as defending the role of experience need not make us empiricists, nor is admitting the role of intuition enough to qualify as intuitionist." (Mario Bunge, "Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism", 2006)

"But notice, a subatomic particle is itself a holon [hole/parts]. And so is a cell. And so is a symbol, and an image, and a concept. What all of those entities are, before they are anything else, is a holon. So the world is not composed of atoms or symbols or cells or concepts. It is composed of holons." (Ken Wilber, "A Brief History of Everything", 2007)

"Language use is a curious behavior, but once the transition to language is made, literature is a likely consequence, since it is linked to the dynamic of the linguistic symbol through the functioning of the imagination." (Russell Berman, "Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture", 2007)

"Images and pictures […] have played a key role in shaping our scientific picture of the world. […] Carefully constructed families of pictures can act as a calculus all their own. Like any successful systems of symbols, with an appropriate grammar they enlarge the number of things that we can do without consciously thinking." (John D Barrow, "Cosmic Imagery: Key Images in the History of Science", 2008)

"How are we to explain the contrast between the matter-of-fact way in which √-1 and other imaginary numbers are accepted today and the great difficulty they posed for learned mathematicians when they first appeared on the scene? One possibility is that mathematical intuitions have evolved over the centuries and people are generally more willing to see mathematics as a matter of manipulating symbols according to rules and are less insistent on interpreting all symbols as representative of one or another aspect of physical reality. Another, less self-congratulatory possibility is that most of us are content to follow the computational rules we are taught and do not give a lot of thought to rationales." (Raymond S Nickerson, "Mathematical Reasoning: Patterns, Problems, Conjectures, and Proofs", 2009)

"Mathematicians are sometimes described as living in an ideal world of beauty and harmony. Instead, our world is torn apart by inconsistencies, plagued by non sequiturs and, worst of all, made desolate and empty by missing links between words, and between symbols and their referents; we spend our lives patching and repairing it. Only when the last crack disappears are we rewarded by brief moments of harmony and joy." (Alexandre V Borovik, "Mathematics under the Microscope: Notes on Cognitive Aspects of Mathematical Practice", 2009)

"Mathematical ideas like number can only be really 'seen' with the 'eyes of the mind' because that is how one 'sees' ideas. Think of a sheet of music which is important and useful but it is nowhere near as interesting, beautiful or powerful as the music it represents. One can appreciate music without reading the sheet of music. Similarly, mathematical notation and symbols on a blackboard are just like the sheet of music; they are important and useful but they are nowhere near as interesting, beautiful or powerful as the actual mathematics (ideas) they represent." (Fiacre O Cairbre, "The Importance of Being Beautiful in Mathematics", IMTA Newsletter 109, 2009)