Symbolizing what cannot be named: "Tao" versus "Yin-Yang"?

Exploring Representation of the Tao in 3D (Part #2)

It is appropriate to note that there is clearly a question as to whether the conventional symbol is of the "Tao" or of its "Yin-Yang" components. There are indeed exploratory representations and animations framed in terms of the second, whereas the first may be considered as inherently beyond any appropriate representation. The classic Tao Te Ching is notably explicit in its introductory chapter to the effect that;:

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

The challenge and the controversy are inherent in the extensive exploration of sacred geometry. There is therefore a sense in which any approach to rendering it as a symbol is necessarily inappropriate.

This view is consistent with philosophical and religious deprecation of any attempt to depict the most encompassing form of unity. However the focus on Yin-Yang could itself be deprecated as a reinforcement of the divisive psychosocial dynamics in engagement with any "other" so characteristic of society today -- whether between political ideologies, strategies, male-female, or inter-ethnic relations, as discussed with respect to Elaborating a Declaration on Combating Anti-otherness (2018). That focus can be seen as stressing the dynamics of competition -- to an unnecessary degree in which, typically, "Yang" is expected to triumph over "Yin".

Rather than any direct focus on the elusive Tao, or on the problematic binary dynamic of Yin-Yang, recourse may be had to an eightfold encoding. In the form of the BaGua "mirror", this is widely known and depicted in two variants as a configuration of eight trigrams. This readily lends itself to a variety of animations (Animation of Classical BaGua Arrangements: a dynamic representation of Neti Neti, 2008). However, "avoiding the Tao" to a greater degree, an even greater articulation is evident in the pattern of 64 hexagrams of the I Ching which also lends itself to a variety of visual configurations and animations (Experimental Revolutionary Animations of a Chinese Pattern of Metaphors, 2015; Proof of concept: use of drilled truncated cube as a mapping framework for 64 elements, 2015).

The "Yin-Yang" framing has raised the question as to a sherical rendering (What would a 3-dimensional yin-yang look like? Quora, 2016). This has engendered efforts to render this in spherical form with interactive options (Sandor Kabai, Spherical Yin-Yang, Wolfram Mathematics Project, November 2008). With respect to the 64-fold articulation, the most relevant is the mapping by József Drasny (Cosmos in the I Ching: the Yi-globe, 2007; revision of 2011). This mapping is illustrated and discussed separately (Designing Global Self-governance for the Future: patterns of dynamic integration of the netherworld, 2010; In Quest of a Dynamic Pattern of Transformations: sensing the strange attractor of an emerging Rosetta Stone, 2012).

Given the problematic global dynamics of the times, how indeed is the "shape" of the psychosocial universe to be more coherently understood? Curiously the case for exploring a unifying symbol of the Tao may be compared to the efforts of astrophysics to explore the shape of the universe. Hypotheses currently focus on::

Whether the universe is infinite or finite in extent
Whether the geometry of the global universe is flat, positively curved, or negatively curved
Whether the topology is simply connected like a sphere or multiply connected, like a torus