Symbolic Representation Research Articles

Philosophy of Balancing Between Contrasting Forces (A Study of Greek, Hindu, and Chinese Myths)

The philosophy of balancing contrasting forces is a recurring theme in mythological narratives and philosophical systems across various cultures. This study explores how Greek, Hindu, and Chinese traditions conceptualize and symbolize the equilibrium between opposing elements, shedding light on a shared human understanding of duality and harmony. Greek mythology presents the dichotomy between Apollonian and Dionysian forces, Hindu mythology embodies the balance through the figure of Lord Shiva, and Chinese philosophy encapsulates it in the Yin-Yang principle. Each tradition offers unique insights into the interplay of order and chaos, creation and destruction, and passivity and activity. This study aims to analyze the conceptual frameworks of balancing contrasting forces, compare and contrast the thematic expressions of duality in the narratives of these three cultural traditions, and identify universal principles and unique cultural expressions of balance as depicted in these mythologies. Employing a qualitative comparative analysis methodology, the research involves systematic collection, interpretation, and comparison of textual data from primary and secondary sources within these mythological traditions. Textual analysis, thematic coding, and comparative synthesis are utilized to uncover both universal principles and unique cultural expressions. Thematic similarities include interdependence and balance, cyclical nature of existence, and integration of opposites across the three traditions. Findings reveal thematic similarities across the traditions, including the interdependence and cyclical nature of existence and the integration of opposites. Additionally, the research highlights cultural distinctions in symbolic representations, practices, and philosophical interpretations. This comprehensive comparative analysis provides a deeper understanding of global philosophical perspectives on duality and harmony, emphasizing the shared human endeavor to achieve balance in life.

Bhagavad Gītā as a Dialogical Space in Philosophical Counseling

The importance of dialogical space and its various forms, useful in philosophical counseling, has been emphasized in recent discourse. The discourse primarily focuses on various aspects of the exchange between the counselee and the counselor in the form of external dialogue. This paper, drawing insights from Hubert Hermans, broadens the discourse into the domain of Agentive Reason, which includes the internal dialogue of the counselee, comprising various I-positions. By engaging with the associated network of the counselee’s “I-positions,” the counselor expands the counselee’s internal domain, thereby facilitating the counseling process. This paper aims to show that this process is best served when the counselor is able to cultivate his/her dialogical relationship with the counselee towards forming a metaposition from where the organization of existing and new I-positions can be seen, questioned, restructured, and most importantly, acted upon. This paper seeks to demonstrate this prospect through a symbolic exploration of Bhagavad Gītā in the form of a dialogical space. It examines how Arjuna’s agentive crisis, echoed in his internal dialogical tension of many maladaptive I-positions, is addressed by extending his dialogical self to Kṛṣṇa’s positions and counter-positions, leading the interaction to a dialogical metaposition in Arjuna’s external domain. The goal is not to establish Kṛṣṇa as a philosophical counselor or to present his discourse with Arjuna as a treatise on philosophical counseling. Rather, the intent is to encourage exploration of the symbolic representation underlying the Gītā, which helps us decipher various dialogical metapositions in the external domain that may correspond with the positions, needs, and emotions in the counselee’s internal domain. This has a threefold purpose: first, to recognize the open boundaries of the dialogical self; second, to examine the instrumental role of the counselor in negotiating these boundaries when they are closed in self-defense; and third, to introduce the concepts of Informed Ignorance and Agentive Reason.

Claude Lefort in the age of the total constitution

Abstract In contradistinction to totalitarianism, Claude Lefort theorised a democratic form of society as one primarily characterised by indeterminacy, absence of ground, and by extension openness to the event. In maintaining this form of society, Lefort reserved a key role for human rights. The aims of this paper are twofold: first, I argue that, despite the fact that Lefort never developed a theory of constitutions, an important role can nonetheless be ascribed to them. I hypothesise constitutions to be key in democratic society’s symbolic representation of itself to itself. Second, I then examine what the repercussions are for this idea when Martin Loughlin’s account of constitutionalism is taken into account. Loughlin’s argument suggests that, while constitutions may have been important safeguards against totalitarianism, constitutions today threaten to become total themselves. I conclude by indicating the populist response as a point of convergence between Lefort’s and Loughlin’s analyses.

Le infrastrutture immateriali per la rigenerazione dei territori nelle aree interne

This paper explores the regeneration of inland areas in Europe, highlighting the potential to address demographic decline and transform these areas into spaces for cultural and social experimentation. The key points are as follows: 1. Europe’s inland areas, which have experienced demographic decline, should be regenerated rather than abandoned. 2. Intangible infrastructures, such as collective initiatives and civic activism, are crucial for revitalising marginalised territories and redefining the relationship between people and the surrounding landscape. 3. Cultural activists and innovators have emphasised the role of culture in regeneration, challenging the urban-centric approach of cultural policies. 4. Cultural activism is transitioning away from the immaterial dimension (projects, activism, theory) to the physical dimension by transforming abandoned spaces into symbolic and literal representations of regeneration. 5. To achieve true regeneration, policies should invest in autonomous organisation at the local level, encourage access to public spaces, reward innovative use of spaces, and ensure culture is viewed as a right of citizenship without geographic or economic barriers.

Biocultural Evolution, Play, and Theological Aesthetics

Abstract: This essay argues that a renewed focus on the importance of embodied social play for people of all ages, but especially for children and teenagers, is an essential element of forming an interdisciplinary response to the mental health crises facing children and young people today. It examines the role of play from the perspective of the sciences, especially psychology and evolutionary biology, but it also draws insights from philosophy and theology to extend its arguments into the arenas of theological anthropology and aesthetics. In addition to the many psychological, emotional, physical, cognitive, and social benefits of play, there is research to suggest that forms of juvenile play, especially ‘pretend play’, in children contribute to the development of capacities relevant for aesthetic experience and expression such as creativity, symbolic representation, mental flexibility, and imagination. This suggests that attention to play and, more broadly, to childhood and children, is important for developments in theological aesthetics. It suggests, at the same time, that theology has important grounds to insist on the goodness of play ‘for its own sake’, while also celebrating the downstream evolutionary benefits of play.

Migratory stratifications: a new analytical tool for investigating social change

ABSTRACT Migrations serve as both a driving force and a reflection of profound social, cultural, economic, demographic and territorial transformations. They interact with global phenomena – of which they are an integral part – while simultaneously being shaped by them, exerting a significant impact on national and local contexts. At the same time, migrations constitute a total social fact, in which the entirety of human practice and experience is involved in a relationship of interdependence. This interplay unfolds within and across the social, economic, political, cultural and religious spheres, worldviews and symbolic representations. Building on these premises and adopting a diachronic perspective, it becomes possible to observe, on the one hand, how migratory phenomena actively reshape societies of origin, destination and transit. On the other hand, one can analyse the stratification of different migratory epochs – shaped by shifting global and local dynamics – through their incorporation into material artefacts and socio-cultural practices.

Thriving Through Stressful Life Events with Nature: A Mixed-Method Study on Tending Indoor Plants and Rumination Resilience

Stressful life events are often undesirable, inevitable, and significant changes in one’s life, often triggering rumination and posing risks to mental health. However, these risks can be managed through coping strategies. Contact with nature has been shown to reduce rumination and enhance mental well-being. The current study investigated the effectiveness of a one-month nature-based intervention in enhancing psychological well-being and building resilience to manage rumination following a stressful life event. In this mixed-method study, 26 participants were randomly allocated to either an experimental group (n = 13), which tended to the Zamioculcas zamiifolia indoor plant for one month, or a waitlist control group (n = 13). Quantitative findings showed that tending to indoor plants was significantly effective in reducing depressive symptoms (p = 0.003), perceived stress (p < 0.001), negative affect (p = 0.017), and rumination (p = 0.015), as well as in enhancing resilience (p = 0.03) compared to the control group post-intervention. Qualitative findings provided insight into how the nature-based intervention fosters rumination resilience, the mediating effects of tending to an indoor plant, and the contribution it makes to psychological well-being. ‘Offers a slice of nature by bringing the outside, in’ demonstrates how caring for indoor plants creates a bridge for connection with nature. ‘Fosters an emotionally regulating personal sanctuary’ captures how tending to indoor plants can help manage emotions and provide a sense of empowerment that helps mitigate the tendency to ruminate. ‘Plants seeds for improving self-care, personal growth and introspection’ highlights indoor plants as a symbolic representation of resilience and renewal. A narrative emerges: as indoor plants grow and thrive with attention, so too does the individual, forming a deep, reciprocal relationship between nature and personal well-being. This study demonstrates nature’s role in coping with stressful life events and developing rumination resilience, paving the way for further research to explore its caveats and refine and expand nature-based interventions.

Research on the Mechanism of Short-videos in Constructing Young People’s Rural Memories

As an emerging digital medium, short videos boast a user base of nearly 1.1 billion, accounting for 95.5% of internet users. This study focuses on youth who have migrated from rural areas to cities for higher education. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews and textual analysis, it reveals that short videos significantly influence the construction of rural memory among youth through three key mechanisms: symbolic representation, identity formation, and group solidarity. The rural symbolic elements in short videos trigger memories and emotional resonance with rural culture among youth, while the comment sections serve as important spaces for expressing rural sentiments. Short videos provide a new avenue for youth to reflect on their rural roots and seek cultural origins, thereby promoting the inheritance and development of rural culture. In the future, the role of short videos in constructing rural memory among youth is expected to become even more prominent.

Politics of the Imagination: Francesco Guicciardini and the Conditions of Effective Government

Abstract This article explores Francesco Guicciardini’s concept of the imagination and argues that it plays a vital, yet hitherto unexplored, role in his political thought. What are called “imaginary conceptions” determine the effects that different governmental strategies have upon a given society. As these both affective and cognitive conceptions are tied to shared, symbolic representations, understanding informal aspects of political life becomes a crucial aspect of Guicciardini’s construal of effective government. To understand these aspects it is necessary to reconstruct the historical genesis of the communal representations as it determines the specificity of the society under consideration. The historical contingency of a society’s imaginary conceptions forces political theory to “imaginatively construct” the institutional forms it suggests, rather than “discover” them among the exempla of the past. The centrality of contingent, imaginary conceptions to political reality leads Guicciardini to break with former Renaissance conceptions of exemplarity.

Colonial Ecological Narratives in Graphic Storytelling: A Postcolonial Ecocritical Study of The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé, a celebrated graphic series, fuses visual storytelling with text narratives. Through the postcolonial ecocriticism lens, as Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin articulated, this study explores the role of the visual medium in representing imperial cultural narratives. By focusing on three texts from the series—Tintin in the Congo, The Black Island, and Tintin in Tibet—the paper examines the depiction of nature within postcolonial ecologies. It investigates the patterns of ecological exploitation that emerge from these narratives. The study reveals the symbolic representation of the natural environment and animals, reflecting cultural hierarchies and ecological domination evident in the interactions of European characters with nature and animals.

Comparison of learning text vs. picture symbol AAC representations for young children on the autism spectrum

Children on the autism spectrum 1 with minimal speech are generally provided with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems that represent vocabulary using picture symbols (i.e., color line drawings). However, there has been minimal research investigating the comparative effectiveness of picture symbols vs. other types of symbol representation (e.g., text) in supporting the communication of children on the autism spectrum. Using a single case adapted alternating treatments experimental design, the current study compared learning of picture symbol and text representations, measured by the accurate identification and functional use of novel AAC symbols by young children on the autism spectrum with minimal speech. Two participants demonstrated notable acquisition of both picture symbols and text. The remaining four children had difficulty demonstrating learning of either symbol representation type. These results suggest that different symbol representations (e.g., digital photographs), layouts (e.g., visual scene displays), and/or instructional procedures (e.g., more naturalistic methods) may have been a better fit for these four participants. Additionally, variability in performance across participants underscores the critical importance of personalization of AAC systems – including symbol representation – based on comprehensive assessment of individual strengths and needs.

Myth and Reality: Gender disparities in Brain Disease Narratives

Introduction: This study analyzes the changing roles of women in relation to brain diseases, focusing on their emotional experiences and the disparity between reality and fiction regarding gender equality in this context. Methodoloy: The qualitative methodology used in this study is based on the narrative analysis of the autobiographical novel “La chica de la parada mental. No pierdas el tren” (2023) by Laura Torres-Caro. The study explores the challenges women face with symptoms of brain injuries, often misinterpreted as psychiatric issues. Discussion: The study highlights how trauma narratives allow affected individuals to confront their condition and recover their identity. Women with neurological or chronic conditions often experience disbelief and isolation, comparable to the mythological figure of Cassandra, whose wisdom was ignored, leading her to solitude. The research aims to understand symbolic representations of gender in brain disease from a mythological perspective to promote gender equity in healthcare. Conclusions: It examines how myths contribute to gender inequality and emotional vulnerability, emphasizing the wisdom and knowledge of women that are often dismissed in patriarchal societies.

Alienation and Bewilderment in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock : A Poetic Representation of the Modern Human Spiritual Crisis

T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock intricately portrays the emotional experiences and fluidconsciousness of an individual in the modern urban landscape, revealing the core symptoms of spiritualalienation—fragmentation, bewilderment, and estrangement. Prufrock is not merely a psychological portrait of anindividual but a symbolic representation of the broader existential crisis of modern subjectivity, shaped by thealienation of time, the estrangement of space, and the rupture of self-perception. The three relational structureswithin the poem serve as a key framework for understanding his psychological predicament, while the introductionof a phenomenological perspective further illuminates the deeper mechanisms of this consciousness structure. Bycapturing the crises of temporal perception, identity formation, and agency, Eliot’s poetics articulates a criticalreflection on the modern experience, offering a profoundly poetic and philosophically rich exploration of thefragmentation of the contemporary human psyche.

“The Only Way to be Moved to Think is to Lose One’s Way”: Bewilderment(ing) Reading Practices

This paper engages with concepts from Nathan Snaza’s book Animate Literacies: Literature, Affect, and the Politics of Humanism in relation to reading practices as an academic, both as a scholar and as a teacher. This paper thinks with Snaza’s writing on bewilderment to (re)think academic reading practices. I focus on reading for pleasure, reading outside one’s disciplinary field, and reading difficult texts. The title of this article is a quote from Snaza’s (2019) book where they discuss bewilderment and literacy. Bewilderment is an affective condition of disorientation when disciplined attention fails and thus, one might not know one’s way as a reader. Therefore, I question, similarly to Snaza, what if literacy is a both/and—both meaning-making and something else, something more? Is it possible for literacy to not be about conscious meaning-making events or representational constructions? In the literacy community we think of literacy as symbolic representations of thought and readers must crack the phonetic code of symbols to make meaning. However, Snaza’s writing prompts us to think differently about reading. Thus, reading creates spaces for us to be otherwise if we conceptualize reading as otherwise, not solely as an act of meaning-making and comprehension but also about how and what it a/effectually produces.

A hybrid-driven soft sensor model with symbolic representation for enhanced self-interpretability

A hybrid-driven soft sensor model with symbolic representation for enhanced self-interpretability

An Intersectional Approach to the Understandings of Well-being of Latin American Adolescent Migrants Living in Barcelona-Spain

Abstract Research on adolescent migrants has prioritized deficit- and adaptation-based approaches, with scarce attention to non-pathologizing perspectives. Faced with this challenge, the study of this population’s understanding of well-being was articulated as a framework capable of strengthening the available knowledge. Qualitative studies on understandings of well-being have contributed to its perception as contextual, multifaceted and changing (Fattore et al., 2021). However, as Hunner-Kreisel and März (Child Indicators Research, 12(2), 425–442, 2019) posit, progress is still required in integrating critical perspectives. Considering this gap, incorporating the intersectional approach allowed the present study to learn about the understandings of well-being from a critical perspective, with a focus on the experiences in the new local space, elaborated by Latin American adolescent migrants living in Barcelona. These understandings were analyzed and articulated following the proposal of Winker and Degele (European Journal of Women’s Studies, 18(1), 51–66, 2011), organized in the levels: identity constructions, symbolic representations and social structures. For the case of adolescent migrants, exploring understandings of well-being from this critical analytical approach strengthens a contextual and historically situated understanding by making oppressions and agencies visible. A qualitative design was used that included semi-structured interviews and the use of photographs as triggers for dialogue with 10 participants between 11 and 18 years of age. The results identify and describe four central understandings of well-being that Latin American adolescent migrants, participants in the study, construct around their new local space: (1) Process of transformations (new identifications, differentiations, belongings) and facing challenges as experiences that enhance a positive sense of self, by perceiving capabilities and growth; (2) Nuclear and extended family as a space of continuity and emotional support; (3) Development of reflective capacity, in terms of comparative analysis between the territory of origin and the new one, generating a sense of understanding of the world and evaluations of present and future living conditions; and (4) Practices that challenge social asymmetry: agency, oriented to include difference; recognition of the relevance of bonds and social support, of linguistic integration and of the inclusive functioning of the school system. This study contributes to advancing critical perspectives on well-being, challenging universalist and psychologistic approaches. The findings offer practical insights for the design of psychosocial interventions and inclusive policies that strengthen adolescents’ agency, promote their inclusion, and address the complex challenges faced by migrant youth in transnational contexts.

Data-Driven Dynamics Learning on Time Simulation of SF6 HVDC-GIS Conical Solid Insulators

An HVDC-GIL system with a conical spacer in a radioactive environment is studied in this work using simulated data on COMSOL® Multiphysics. Electromagnetic simulations on a 2D model were performed with varying ion-pair generation rates and potential applied to the system. This article explores machine learning methods to derive time to steady state, dark current, gas conductivity, and surface charge density expressions. The focus was on constructing symbolic representations, which could be interpretable and less prone to overfitting, using the symbolic regression (SR) and sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics (SINDy) algorithms. The study successfully derived the intended expressions, demonstrating the power of symbolic regression. Predictions of dark currents in the gas–ground electrode interface reported an absolute error and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 1.04 × 10−4 pA and 0.01%, respectively. The solid–ground electrode interface reported an error of 8.99 × 10−5 pA and MAPE of 0.04%, showing strong agreement with simulation data. Expressions for time to steady state had a test error of approximately 110 h with MAPE of around 3%. Steady-state gas conductivity expression achieved an absolute error of 0.55 log(S/m) and MAPE of 1%. An interpretable equation was created with SINDy to model the time evolution of surface charge density, achieving a root mean squared error of 1.12 nC/m2/s across time-series data. These results demonstrate the capability of SR and SINDy to provide interpretable and computationally efficient alternatives to time-consuming numerical simulations of HVDC systems under radiation conditions. While the model provides useful insights, performance and practical applications of the expressions can improve with more diverse datasets, which might include experimental data in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic art of Anna Szpakowska-Kujawska: from pastels to spatial compositions

In this article, Karolina Tomczak is concerned with the latest and as yet unstudied works of renowned Wrocław artist Anna Szpakowska-Kujawska (born in 1931) created during the pandemic. These works include a series of pastels Kwadraty zaokienne (Squares outside the Window, or “pandemic squares”) from 2020 and spatial objects made of polystyrene foam and cardboard executed in the years 2021–2022. Tomczak gives an analytical interpretation of the modernist element in Szpakowska-Kujawska’s artistic record of her experience of the plague as it developed from painting at the point of realistic departure to unconventional sculpture. Tomczak shows that the reworking of difficult realities in the artistic medium finally takes place in spatial objects that are transgressively modern in that they reinterpret the model of avant-garde sculpture, selected postmodern artistic solutions and Szpakowska-Kujawska’s original art. At the same time, Tomczak sees Szpakowska-Kujawska’s works as expressive objects and personal psychograms encoding reality in the subjective iconography of a special period, which stylistically determines the coexistence of individualized biomorphism and simplified figuration, abstract universalization and symbolic representation. Being an example of creative adaptation to the contemporary threat, the works are affirmations of artistic activity in everyday conditions, as well as a continuation of Szpakowska-Kujawska’s distinct version of occasionally transgressive modernism. In her methodologically concretized approach, Tomczak uses stylistic analysis and compositional interpretation, as well as contextual and partly psychoanalytic method.

Symbolism itself does not improve memory for elements on the periodic table.

Recent work demonstrates that symbols (e.g., $) are reliably better remembered than their word counterparts (e.g., 'dollar'). It remains an open question whether the memory benefit observed for symbols is due to their unique visual form, or because they offer a symbolic representation of to-be-remembered information. Here, we assessed memory for symbols on the periodic table of elements, which could be presented in symbol format (e.g., H) or word format (e.g., Hydrogen), and compared both to memory for meaningless letters (e.g., J). These stimuli were selected because they all share the same visual features and the former two share the same meaning. Memory was compared across individuals with and without a background in chemistry. In non-experts, memory was highest for words relative to symbols and meaningless letters. In experts (students who had passed an introductory chemistry course), however, memory for words and symbols was equivalent, with both higher than for meaningless letters. Results suggest that prior knowledge of what a symbol means is necessary to gain a memory benefit over semantically-void information, but is not enough to boost memory relative to words. We suggest that using a concrete visual symbol to represent an abstract concept is not enough to confer a memory advantage relative to words; a meaningful and visually distinctive symbol may be necessary.

Towards Data-And Knowledge-Driven AI: A Survey on Neuro-Symbolic Computing.

Neural-symbolic computing (NeSy), which pursues the integration of the symbolic and statistical paradigms of cognition, has been an active research area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for many years. As NeSy shows promise of reconciling the advantages of reasoning and interpretability of symbolic representation and robust learning in neural networks, it may serve as a catalyst for the next generation of AI. In the present paper, we provide a systematic overview of the recent developments and important contributions of NeSy research. First, we introduce study history of this area, covering early work and foundations. We further discuss background concepts and identify key driving factors behind the development of NeSy. Afterward, we categorize recent landmark approaches along several main characteristics that underline this research paradigm, including neural-symbolic integration, knowledge representation, knowledge embedding, and functionality. Next, we briefly discuss the successful application of modern NeSy approaches in several domains. Then, we benchmark several NeSy methods on three representative application tasks. Finally, we identify the open problems together with potential future research directions. This survey is expected to help new researchers enter this rapidly evolving field and accelerate the progress towards data-and knowledge-driven AI.