zee_werp said:

I am interested in how we as humans use various symbols to represent different ideas / systems / beleifs, etc. I thought it would be cool to have a post where you can say what your 'favourite' symbol is, and what it means to you. By 'favourite' I mean anything from something you find asthetically attractive, to one that 'sums it all up' for you, or it can just be one that you particularly identify with for whatever reason. It can be any symbol, whether it is a commonly used one or if you designed it yourself, thats fine. It would be extra cool if people could post a pic of the particular symbol they are talking about.

Allright, I'll start the ball rolling. I know this may seem like an ultra cliche choice, my favourite symbol is, without a doubt, the yin-yang.


This symbol is something that has grown on me. It seems like every day, it grows more and more significant. To me, it represents contrast and duality, which can occur on many different levels. Fundamentally, it represents the two simplest aspects of reality - infinity and nothing - which I see as unified into one within the yin-yang. I beleive that it is these two fundamental properties (infinity and nothing) which are giving rise to the reality we are experiencing now. We are the interference pattern of these properties interacting. Everything contains both properties and neither of the properties can exist without each other as a point of reference, a contrast to allow perception.

To get a better grip of my 'interference pattern' theory, think of a fractal image. Incase you don't know what a fractal is, here is a part of one of the better known ones, the mandelbrot set.

A fractal image is literally of infinite complexity - you can zoom in on it forever and still not reach 'the end'. The way that they tie in with the yin-yang is the way in which they are created. A fractal is made from a simple mathematical formula, in the case of the mandelbrot set it's . The arrows on the = sign means that it goes both ways. Anyway, basically each part of the image is a point which has a number, and when the formula is applied to the point multiple times, it will always either shoot up to infinity, or shoot down to zero. The black areas of the fractal is where its gone to zero, and the coloured areas are where it goes to infinity. The colours of a fractal are arbitrarily assigned, and they represent the speed at which the equation goes to infinity (how many times the equation has to be applied before it maxes out).

So basically a fractal just goes to show that the yin-yang isn't all 'black and white' but can infact allow for infinite complexity. Another thing to think about is digital code - the battle of the 1's and the 0's.

Basically to me the yin-yang just sums it all up. Whenever I get into a deep trance state or major philosophical thought track, it always seems to come back to the yin-yang. However I haven't decided yet if this is 'it', or if there is an additional force in there somewhere, which caused the interference pattern to emerge in the first place rather than infinity and nothing simply 'being' in one pure eternal moment (which could actually be happening as well as this, or we could be headed back that way).

OK so I guess you can tell I like the yin-yang a lot and I can talk about it for hours so I should probably stop here for now...I just recently also designed a 'supersymbol' which is a combination of several symbols that I might post sometime soon.

Oh and if you didn't understand what I was on about with the yin-yang, maybe try having a strong dose of your chosen psychedelic substance, and then have a hit of nitrous while you're peaking

And if you want to check out some more images of the mandelbrot set, check out these two links:
http://www.jimloy.com/fractals/mandel0.htm
http://www.few.vu.nl/~feenstra/mandel_gallery.html

---

 


But,..

I love this one:



And some other shit slaphappy just showed me!