  In quantum theory, real degrees of freedom are usually described by operators
which are self-adjoint. There are, however, exceptions to the rule. This is
because, in infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces, an operator is not necessarily
self-adjoint even if its expectation values are real. Instead, the operator may
be merely symmetric. Such operators are not diagonalizable - and as a
consequence they describe real degrees of freedom which display a form of
"unsharpness" or "fuzzyness". For example, there are indications that this type
of operators could arise with the description of space-time at the string or at
the Planck scale, where some form of unsharpness or fuzzyness has long been
conjectured.
  A priori, however, a potential problem with merely symmetric operators is the
fact that, unlike self-adjoint operators, they do not generate unitaries - at
least not straightforwardly. Here, we show for a large class of these operators
that they do generate unitaries in a well defined way, and that these operators
even generate the entire unitary group of the Hilbert space. This shows that
merely symmetric operators, in addition to describing unsharp physical
entities, may indeed also play a r{\^o}le in the generation of symmetries, e.g.
within a fundamental theory of quantum gravity.
