The term "symbolic" acts as a qualifying adjective that serves to designate anyone who expresses a symbolism, something not concrete or evident. The symbolic is what is generated from the presence of symbols. Symbols can be any type of graphic, oral or gestural representation that replaces an idea, a way of feeling, an opinion, etc. It is clear that everything that is symbolic is also part of language and communication between men, also becoming something even more complex than something concrete, since for something to have symbolism it must have a level of abstraction that allows us to understand that that replaces the idea and is not the idea itself.
To better understand the idea of whether or not something is symbolic, we should first understand the concept of symbol. The human being, when developing language and communication, has created different types of symbols whose objective is nothing more than to represent something that is not in the place and at the time in which it is being mentioned. Thus, since prehistoric times when man drew in caves, a symbol was being generated that had a particular meaning and that, in that case, also had a magical sense of thinking that when animals were painted, they would be easier to paint. hunt.
A symbol is not just a drawing or a figure: the same letters and numbers are symbolic elements of sounds that one makes when speaking or of quantities that one can observe in reality. We could say then that both mathematics and language are symbolic areas of knowledge because they represent it through symbols.
Thus, the symbolic can be described as everything that is represented through a symbol. It is important that for this symbol to have the value or meaning it takes, it must be accepted as such by all the people who participate in that language. Thus, it is evident that a cloud in a weather forecast represents a cloudy day, that a symbol with a cross means forbidden, that a heart means love or affection, that a wink of the eye means (in some cultures) trust and agreement.
