The circumpunct is formed with a circle and a dot in the center. This symbol has many historical uses but also represents the creative spark of the divine consciousness, a unifying principle of human intellect. Also, the circumpunct is the alchemical symbol for gold, important within alchemy as the familiar goal for alchemists to turn the common element of lead into the valuable substance of gold. Even this alchemical tradition served as more of a metaphor for taking common or achieved knowledge and transmuting it into new ideas or new insights.
Plato introduced the gadfly as his personal symbol and as a metaphor for the jarring effect that new ideas have upon a mind. The gadfly possessed a powerful sting, not unlike the more common bee or wasp that modern audiences would be familiar with. Plato used the gadfly to represent an experience that he defined as aporea, the moment when the mind is faced with a new idea and may experience violent rejection, fear or even anger.
The 20th century added the light bulb as a popular new symbol for new ideas. While the symbol itself depicted one of the seminal achievements of the late 19th century, which would become a household item in the 20th, it became a symbol for human invention. Early Disney cartoons adopted the light bulb as its original symbol for an idea, where audiences would see a light bulb appear over a character's head, indicating that the character had just had an idea.
From the earliest Greek traditions, the symbol of fire represented the gift from Prometheus to mankind in the form of technology, innovation and invention. The gift symbolized the human capacity to create and think of new ideas. It was, in a sense, the light of creation, that before his gift was a divine spark, and would forever distinguish humankind as separate from other creatures.