Summary Of Symbols And The Creation Of Reality By Kent Sandstrom

Kent Sandstrom’s article “Symbols and the Creation of Reality” talks about the different types of sensations we experience as humans, how we categorize everything to make sense of the world, the importance of symbols, signs, and the true reality behind it all.

In my opinion Sandstroms was very clear on differentiating between signs and symbols. I got the chance to visualize a clear image between the two. The article states that “a sign is directly connected to an object or an event that is predictable and set; dark clouds are a sign of rain, and smoke is a sign of fire” (pg22). We as humans know this is a sign because we did not create the idea of “smoke being a sign of fire”, this is an activity that naturally occurs without any type of influence.
A flag is an example of a symbol because people use a piece of cloth to stand for a nation and its guiding principles (23). I use the symbol of affection with my children every day. To me the symbol of affection is a kiss or a hug. The hug being a symbol was a partial example in the article which really caught my eye. Before learning about symbols and signs I thought that a kiss or a hug would be a “sign of affection”. In the language department we don’t say “that person made eye contact with me, they showed a symbol of affection” we say “that person made eye contact with me, they should a sign of affection”. I always assumed that affection was a sign but after reading this article I learned that it is actually a symbol of affection. Sandstrom made it very easy in the article to understand the difference between sign and
I believe that this statement is related to language. Without language our world would be quiet, we would need new gestures and responses every time someone were to express an emotion like “angry, happy, and sad”. Sandstorm says that we categorize and “actively slice up the world and organize it into concepts – plants, animals, cities, and countries – that allow us to give them meaning so that we are not overly stimulated with the world (pg.23). I like Sandstroms visual description in his statement and I think that it provides readers with a great understanding of exactly how overly stimulated people would be if we did not have symbols, signs, conceptualization and categorization our lives. The world is categorized and we really don’t see the world “as it is”. The world would be without knowledge, stories could not be passed on and no future to look forward to. Silence would be our national language and the world would have never discovered anything. You would not understand lights, colors, objects, movements and smells (Sandstrom, K. pg.