Sure, but the latter phrase means nothing to me (I don't speak the language) and thus I wouldn't be able to recognize it as a symbol. This makes me wonder about how arbitrary symbols are. Who's to say a pile of dirt isn't a symbol for, say, a horse? To me, "αρνι" is as much a symbol for "lamb" as a pile of dirt is a symbol for a horse. Does it require that at least one observer somewhere in the universe understands dirt -> horse, just as αρνι meaning lamb just requires a subset of people to understand it as "lamb"?

i wonder if this is true. to what extent is the symbolic representation of a coffee mug in my brain identical to the symbolic representation of a coffee mug in your brain? does knowing one make the other easier to identify, or is it a product of personal development and unique between people?

seems like this is just a narrow subset of the "internal thought processes" used in problem solving, i.e. leaving out subconscious thought and intermediary thoughts... i wonder if adding non-introspective problem solving observations would have improved this model (was fmri/eeg/etc around then to help?)