  Weyl’s procedure thus amounts to the following. In step 1, a given  configuration is subjected to variation. One then identifies those  features of the configuration that remain unchanged under the  variation—the invariant features; these are in turn,  through a process of reification, deemed to be properties of an  unchanging substrate—the “things themselves”. It is precisely the invariance of such features that renders them (as well  as the “things themselves”) capable of being represented  by the “time resisting” symbols Weyl introduces in step  2. As (written) symbols these are communicable without temporal  distortion and can be subjected to unrestricted manipulation without  degradation. It is the flexibility conferred thereby which enables  the use of symbols to be conformable with reality. Nevertheless (step 3) symbols are not haphazardly created in response to immediate  stimuli; they are introduced, rather, in a structured, yet freely  chosen manner which reflects the idea of an underlying  order—the “one real world”—about which not  everything is, or can be, known—it is, like the future,  “open towards infinity”. Weyl observes that the  reification implicit in the procedure of symbolic construction leads  inevitably to its iteration, for “the transition from step to  step is made necessary by the fact that the objects at one step  reveal themselves as manifestations of a higher reality, the reality  of the next step” (Weyl (1934), 32–33). But in the end  “systematic scientific explanation will finally reverse the  order: first it will erect its symbolical world by itself, without  any reference, then, skipping all intermediate steps, try to describe which symbolical configurations lead to which data of  consciousness” (ibid.). In this way the symbolic world becomes (mistakenly) identified with the transcendent world.