User blog comment:Ikosarakt1/Symbols function/@comment-25418284-20121205235359/@comment-25418284-20121214215625

The point is that I'm trying to re-create your function, but with a much more primitive set of symbols -- in fact, the simplest system possible! If my guess is right, the most basic system we can define would use only 1, addition, and recursion, represented by the symbols 1, +, and *.

Even addition, however, is just recursive succession, so we could probably go even more basic than this.