Symbol
General Definition
In classical terms, the symbol is that which represents something absent or abstract. It is associated with substitution, analogy, or the representation of invisible ideas by visible forms. In the Ontology of Emergent Complexity, the symbol is an emergent material configuration that represents another organization of matter, non-present or abstract, provided that this representation is functionally active and reinscribable in a complex system. The symbol does not mirror — it reorganizes. It is a material operator that stabilizes differences, making them functionally legible and transmissible.
Ontological Variations in the Ontology of Emergent Complexity
Symbol as Inaugural Material Gesture
The symbol neither represents nor substitutes: it inscribes a material difference that reorganizes the system. It acts as an inaugural gesture of meaning formation, even in the absence of formal language or external codification.
Symbol As Operative Inscription
The symbol neither represents nor substitutes: it inscribes a material difference that reorganizes the system. It acts as an inaugural gesture of meaning formation, even in the absence of formal language or external codification.
Symbol as Matrix of Memory and Reason
The symbol establishes the possibility of symbolic memory and material reason. By reinscribing differences, it makes operative continuity and conceptual plasticity possible without recourse to transcendence or essence.
Symbol as Mediator
The symbol is the first gesture of inscription that organizes instability into a functional field. It does not depend on code or external reference — it emerges from a significant friction that establishes a difference capable of operating within the system.
Symbol Without Subject
Symbolic mediation is the name given to the process by which a material organization represents, reinscribes, or stabilizes another organization of matter itself, making it functionally active in a complex system. There is no ontological duplication here, but rather an internal relationship between two differentiated material configurations — one present, the other abstractly maintained.