We're taught to look for hidden meaning in some symbols, a search we can't give up once it has begun, but some symbols are simply too vexing or arcane to understand.
And then there are those symbols that seem to have hidden meaning but actually mean whatever you'd like them to mean, such as the fleur-de-lis, asterisk or looped square.
These symbols are often seen as iconic and powerful because of the organizations they're associated with, like the looped square and Apple computers or the fleur-de-lis and the Boy Scouts, but their true meaning is mostly lost to time.
Like the symbols themselves, you shouldn't take this mental_floss article 4 Symbols Without Actual Meanings at face value, because these symbols actually have more than one meaning, depending on who you ask.