Difference between Ideas and Symbols

A really interesting question you've asked.

Well, first of all, I think there are signs, and the signs are literally a mind chamber. How can it be comprehended? I think that our view on a something somehow impacts on an image, and that's why our view is not a pure or a crystal representation, but some kind of a reflection into the mind's mirror. And the mirror, or its surface, is what reflects it somehow.

Usually we call it signs, but the signs are what reflects an "outer" image or the reality. And at the same time, there's no real reflections, or representations of something else, but the nature of signs - that's what I think to be important - relates majorly to those kinda reflections.

Notice that: a person can understand a sign that has been left by someone else (just let's assume it was left: A. by a bear; B. by a person occasionally; C. by a person intentionally). When a person sees the trace, and he guessed about whose are these footprints, he's thinking of some signs. So, if it was A, then a person answer that a bear left it, if B - then a person went here; if C - a person, perhaps, could get us wrong. But in each time if a sign was left more or less curved, a person will understand it anyway. When a student's handwritten is bad, but a work is still required to be checked and valued, a teacher tries his hard to deciphe what that student wrote; a little later a teacher can say he has decrypt it.

A symbol - to me - is an important kind of a sign. And a symbol literally has something behind it. If we see some footprints we can say that it is a mark of something, or something has occurred here (when a trace was left). When we were dealing with a symbol, it would be more relevant to say that there was a reason behind that to take a certain sign as something more - to show or to represent something. So, when a sign is taken as itself, then it's common to start speaking about symbols. Just as in such an example: a novelist is guessing about which name his book must have. And while he's thinking about the name of his book, he tries to find the right sign (that now has a form of a name) and to put if foreward. But for why the novelist is trying to do it? - He wants the name of his book be a symbol of what he's written.

It's really interesting to me how an idea can relate to a symbol. Because, I guess, a symbol can be representation of a certain idea, while there may be an idea to symbolize something. "Plato's cave" itself can symbolize ideas, while using "Plato's cave" as a symbol - in turn, is an idea. Is it possible for an idea to not correlate with any of symbol? - I think, yes. But what about an idea that cannot be symbolized? - I guess only too complex ideas cannot be symbols. Usually, many symbols are not wide, and they usually are plain or compact.