Symbolism, Meaning, and Complex Information

    Symbolism is used in every culture and every society and has been since the dawn of human history. Symbols are the units of our writing systems and how we document and write down our history and knowledge. Symbolism is a phenomenon unique primarily to humanity, with humanity being the only organism known to use advanced symbols to convey and transmit information and meaning to an audience or individuals within a group or collective culture. 

     

    Symbolism is defined by the transmission of meaning and information between conscious beings. WIthout an established set of meaning and consensus on that meaning, the symbol has no power or influence over an audience. Symbols are useless without meaning. Once meaning has been assigned to a symbol, that symbol holds influence and power over the minds of those who understand its meaning. 

       Units of meaning are the foundational parts of abstract information. Symbols are one of the primary vectors of the transmission of abstract ideas and information from one mind to another. What I am doing right now is a good example of this. Writing systems themselves are made of symbols that encode meaning into a physical, observable code that transmits information visually into the human mind. 

Writing systems are one of the most important advancements of human history, as it gave us the ability to document and encode data and information more permanently and with more longevity and endurance than oral histories and just oral, sound based communication. 

Writing allowed for a more static, less corruptible and distortable method of transmitting information. Writing can last, relatively unchanged, for thousands of years if placed on a medium that is not as decayable by entropy, the elements, and time. Words themselves, and meaning in particular, is much less subject to entropy, if at all, than physical, material things like elements and physical structures. 

        This is where I distinguish abstract information from concrete information the most. Abstract information, like complex ideas and meaning in general, don't decay over time. They are not bound by entropy, even if humans are and the mediums they are engraved on, like the pages of a book or an internet blog or a stone tablet, decay, break down, or cease to function. 

 From my view, meaning as conveyed by words, code, language, and writing, is truly eternal. Even timeless. From my perspective, these abstract things exist in a reality that never dies, even if the physical does. A reality highly misunderstood by humans and distinct from our reality, albeit with certain connections to this physical world through consciousness, the imagination, and code such as language and symbolism.  

  Symbolism, code, and language convey constructs of reality and abstract information that is hard for many people to understand from the disconnected vantage point that we have and the inability of many people to see the truth of these constructs in a form that is comprehendible. 

These abstract things, because of uncertainty and their unphysical nature, are easy to delegitimize or outright deny the existence of because of the indirect method by which we get access to these abstract concepts and ideas and non-physical meaning. Many of them can only be processed and "observed" mentally within the human mind. 

 Many of these abstract things can only exist in this world conceptually and within the human mind, but I believe that doesn't make them not exist or not real. It just means they can't completely exist in a physical, measurable way in our external, shared world, which makes these abstract things difficult to study empirically. 

Symbolism transmits complex, fluid abstract information into the human mind allows us to have a physical, relatable object to come to a shared cultural and historical understanding of the assigned meaning and purpose to that object. Just look at a flag, like the American flag, and you automatically have an association of the meaning and purpose and history of the country it represents, both the abstract concept of that country and its ideals as well as the physical, measurable components and territory

. The history, culture, and achievements of that nation are represented by its flag. All of this is abstract information. All of this is more mental and symbolic than anything.

 Look at religious symbolism. Look at the cross, for example. It represents the sacrifice, death, and brutalization of who Christians consider to be the Son of God.  His murder at the hands of the very people He came to save is looked at as a pure, innocent sacrifice to cleanse the sins of all who come to Him for forgiveness. This is represented by a relatively simple geometric symbol, but that symbol has profound implications for people who actually believe in the construct and idea and truth of the Christ.

 It is a symbol, and one of the most preeminent symbols, of the Creator of existence. In a strange twist of irony, the cross can also be a symbol of a zero point. Of the infinitely small, a boundary and foundation of our existence that is poorly understood, but contains a profound truth about our existence, that infinity could very well go down into the smallness as well as up into the largeness. Both the smallness and the largeness are mysteries. 

Both are the realm of God, and a cross is one of the most basic representations of a zero-point. This is all assigned to often simple symbols, and most of it is complex abstract information. Information that can have immense power over a human mind.

 This is also a good example of symbols having double-meanings. Symbols can have multiple meanings and applications.

 Much of this is abstract, nonphysical information. often including a historical component, but once a person understands the meaning of a symbol, it gives the symbol power and influence over the mind of the person involved.

 Symbolism and words are components of reality that are often unappreciated in their depth, influence, and power. There ability to convey abstract information is such a major component of the human experience. From my perspective, abstract information is timeless and eternal. We have ideas and stories in our world that date back thousands of years, many of which are unchanged. Written down, if the medium survives, abstract information has been shown to greatly resist entropy, if it is bound by entropy at all. 

 The words can convey information that happened thousands of years ago with its meaning relatively intact. Even though ideas can evolve, meaning doesn't seem to be bound by entropy, and so abstract ideas retain meaning no matter how much time has past. The abstract, and meaning, is truly eternal. Even timeless, and they will outlast the physical universe eternally (although physicality probably resurges continuously over eternity). From my view, the physical stems from the abstract. The abstract was eternally before and will be eternally after this physical universe. 

 This is the realm of infinity. This is the realm of God.

"Heaven and Earth Will Pass Away, but My Words Will Never Pass Away" (Matthew 24:35)