From Stories to Scientific Models and Back: Narrative framing in modern macroscopic physics

Abstract

Narrative in science learning has become an important field of inquiry. Most applications of narrative are extrinsic to science—such as when they are used for creating affect and context. Where they are intrinsic, they are often limited to special cases and uses. To extend the reach of narrative in science, a hypothesis of narrative framing of natural and technical scenes is formulated. The term narrative framing is used in a double sense, to represent (1) the enlisting of narrative intelligence in the perception of phenomena and (2) the telling of stories that contain conceptual elements used in the creation of scientific models of these phenomena. The concrete case for narrative framing is made by conceptual analyses of simple stories of natural phenomena and of products related to modern continuum thermodynamics that reveal particular figurative structures. Importantly, there is evidence for a medium-scale perceptual gestalt called force of nature that is structured metaphorically and narratively. The resulting figurative conceptual structure gives rise to the notion of natural agents acting and suffering in storyworlds. In order to show that formal scientific models are deeply related to these storyworlds, a link between using (i.e. simulating) models and storytelling is employed. This link has recently been postulated in studies of narrative in computational science and economics.

Keywords:

• Narrative framing
• Perceptual gestalts
• Modeling
• Science education

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Federico Corni, Alessandro Ascari, Enrico Giliberti, and Elisabeth Dumont for valuable discussions of the use of stories in teacher training, in school, and in industrial settings, and for allowing me be a part of their research projects. Moreover, I greatly appreciate the eminently constructive feedback of a reviewer and the guest editors on a first version of this paper. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Robin Fuchs, for helping me design stories of forces of nature for primary education.

Notes

1. As far as science is concerned, the present analysis is limited to macroscopic physical science—essentially in the form of continuum physics and its simple derivative of spatially uniform dynamical systems. While the literature on continuum physics is vast, it is by nature very technical. Some of the books on continuum physics in general (Eringen, 1971–1976; Truesdell & Noll, 1965; Truesdell & Toupin, 1960) and on continuum thermodynamics in particular (Jou, Casas-Vazquez, Lebon, 1996; Müller, 1985; Truesdell, 1984) may be of use for those interested in an overview and technical aspects. The most accessible of these may be a text on a modern dynamical theory of heat (Fuchs, 2010). Here is a brief description of the basic structure of continuum physics (Fuchs, 2010, p. 9). Modern continuum physics presents us with a unified approach to macroscopic physical systems and processes taking the following form. First, we have to agree upon which physical quantities we are going to use as the fundamental or primitive ones. On their basis, other quantities are defined and laws expressed. Second, there are the fundamental laws of balance of the quantities that are exchanged or created in processes, such as momentum, charge, entropy, or amount of substance; I call these quantities fluidlike. Third, there are potentials or potential differences that are visualized as driving forces for the processes undergone by the fluidlike quantities. Fourth, we need particular laws governing the behavior of, or distinguishing between, different bodies; these laws are called constitutive relations. Constitutive laws relate the basic fluidlike quantities to potentials or potential differences. Last but not least, we need a means of relating different types of physical phenomena to each other. The tool that permits us to do this is energy. We use the energy principle, that is, the law that expresses our belief that there is a conserved quantity appearing in all phenomena that has a particular relationship with each type of processes.

2. Figures of mind: objects of (in) mind created by figurative thought (e.g. a metaphor) or by perception (a perceptual gestalt or shape). Short for figurative structures of mind; to be distinguished from figurative structures outside of mind and structures of mind that are not figurative. (On the notion of figurative thought and related concepts, see Gibbs, 1994.) In using the term figure of mind, I take a cue from figure of speech. Traditionally, such as in rhetoric, examples of figures of speech are metaphor, simile, hyperbole, synechdoche, etc. Since cognitive linguistics insists that figurative language reflects a deeper (i.e. mental) phenomenon, the term figure of mind is introduced as the (mental, cognitive) counterpart of figure of speech. It relates not to semiotic products but to mental products, objects, or structures. Sometimes I use the term more broadly to include the (direct) products of perception, that is, gestalts or shapes (the latter term is from Arnheim, 1969). Arnheim's notion of ‘visual thinking' suggests that (visual) perception is a form of thinking leading to structures of (figurative) thought. When the distinction between shapes or gestalts and the products of projection of structure from such gestalts onto target domains (as in metaphor) is important, I will use figures of mind only for the latter objects. See Section 2.1 for further details.

3. Note that I use the term force not in the sense of mechanics proper but in its primitive sense of phenomena that are endowed with power. Heat, wind, justice, language, pain, love, electricity, music, the market, etc. are forces or powers in this sense (music has been described as, but not named, a force by Johnson, 2007, Chap. 11). Macroscopic physical science grows from the notion of forces of nature (Fuchs, 2010).

4. Framing is used in a sense originally suggested by Fillmore's (2006) frame semantics: if we hear an utterance we construct—or, if it has been constructed before—invoke a frame, that is, a conceptual structure for understanding that utterance. The latter is said to be ‘about a scene', so we can speak of framing scenes (or situations or scenarios; see also Cienki, 2007).

5. In cognitive science, it is quite common to assume that humans have a narrative mind, meaning that they understand the world narratively (see, for example, Bruner's concept of narrative construction of reality, Bruner, 1991; this is again a theme in modern narratology as a branch of cognitive science; Herman, 2013). Building on this concept, I assume that our narrative mind allows for intelligent narrative perception: we do not just perceive small-scale stuff as units from which larger-scale things are built but also large-scale processes and events that resemble (long) stories. This argument parallels Rudolf Arnheim's concept of the intelligence of visual perception (Arnheim, 1969) and may be recognized again in the idea of the narrativity of perception (Carr, 1991).

6. The question of emotional perception in a story of natural forces is quite central to the entire issue of using narrative in a more than peripheral (extrinsic: Norris et al., 2005) form in science and science learning. On the one hand, it has been argued quite convincingly that story and emotion go hand in hand. At the end of a good story, we should know how to feel about the events and characters (Egan, 1986). Stories give us emotional closure, not intellectual understanding (Velleman, 2003). Stories are opposed to paradigmatic thought; they are repositories of folk psychology (Bruner, 1987, 1990). On the other hand, emotion may well be the root of reason (Johnson, 2007). Therefore, accepting that a good story (a central member of the category of narrative) must make emotional perception possible and that a good scientific story must make narrative framing of forces of nature possible, we need to admit that science stories have to open emotional access to these forces. The question of how stories of forces of nature lead to their emotional perception and, eventually, to their scientific framing, will have to be investigated in much more depth in the future. Clearly, this is just one example of the quest for understanding the relation between emotion and reason.

7. I would like to suggest that the concept of a gestalt of force and its figurative structuring goes well beyond natural phenomena. Indeed, forces are ubiquitous creatures of the human mind; we perceive social and psychological forces in addition to forces of nature. A beautiful example of the metaphoric analysis of our understanding of music (Johnson, 2007, Chap. 11) shows not only that there are other forces, it demonstrates a particularly useful form of analysis of a phenomenon that is perceived as what I call force. Johnson shows that there are three main conceptual metaphors we use in our understanding of music: (1) music as a moving object, (2) music as a landscape in which we move, and (3) music as a moving force (the identification of these metaphors parallels the structure of substance, intensity, and power I use to conceptualize forces of nature). Another example is the perception of justice where the full conceptual structure of a force is reflected in everyday utterances (Fuchs, 2011).

8. The power of a process is always equal to the product of a potential difference (tension) and the flow of a fluidlike quantity through this potential difference. In fluids: P_fluid= Δp· I_V (p: pressure, I_V: volume current); in electricity: P_electric= Δφ·I_Q (φ: electric potential, I_Q: current of electric charge); in thermodynamics: P_thermal= ΔT·I_S (T: temperature, I_S: current of caloric (entropy)); in chemistry: P_chemical= Δµ·I_n (µ: chemical potential, I_n: current of amount of substance). All these equations can be represented in terms of visual metaphors, so-called process diagrams (Figure 1; Fuchs, 2010, Chap. 2; see also Falk, Herrmann, & Schmid, 1983).

9. It is certainly possible to argue, as many scientists would, that equations do not invoke images. On the other hand, if we assume that our concepts are grounded in embodied cognition, we cannot escape the conclusion that we must find figures of mind in the equations of a model. For an important argument that equations are more than purely formal representations, see Sherin (2001). Extending the depth and details of Sherin's work to the present case is beyond the scope of this paper. For a more detailed description of the figurative structure of the partial differential equations of continuum thermodynamics, see Fuchs (2013c). See also Endnote 11.

10. For a more sophisticated example of continuum thermodynamics (thermoelectricity), see Fuchs (2014). We find the same figurative conceptual structures there as in our simpler example. The ease with which a supposedly complicated case is modeled is a witness to the power of the storyworld that is the result of a narrative approach to thermodynamics.

11. In modern (non-equilibrium and continuum) thermodynamics, the law of balance of entropy is conceptualized as the formal equivalent of the embodied notion of the balance of a fluidlike quantity analogous to charge, momentum, or amount of substance (Fuchs, 1996/2010: Introduction). Unlike charge or momentum, entropy satisfies only half a conservation law, and amount of substance none at all. Entropy satisfies the embodied notion of caloric suitably extended by the requirement that caloric is generated in irreversible processes. On the concept of caloric in the modern theories of thermodynamics, see Callendar (1911), Job (1972), Falk (1985), Fuchs (1986, 1987a, 1987b, 1996/2010) and Mareš et al. (2008). For a contribution to the debate of historical issues, see Kuhn (1955). Let me stress here that I personally believe that changing the use of terminology from entropy to caloric would be essential on two important grounds. First, psychologically speaking, the word entropy does not convey any useful embodied image, certainly not for macroscopic models of thermal processes. This word will serve no other purpose than to confuse a child and send an adult layperson onto a search into esoteric land or for microscopic disorder. Second, for scientific reasons, it is paramount that we understand the difference between macroscopic and microscopic models (and accept that microscopic models do not ground macroscopic ones). Using two terms, caloric and (logarithm of) number of possible configurations or states, for macroscopic and microscopic models, respectively, can make this distinction plain. I have refrained in this section from using the term caloric in order to conform to the tradition.

12. Note that we could easily construct a word model for the situation analyzed here. Its form will depend upon the audience this is intended for (engineering students or young children, for instance). Depending upon the circumstances, the semiotic product could be a peripheral member of the category of narrative (a narrativized description or an explanatory narrative) or a central member, that is, a proper story (see Section ‘Theory of narrative’).

13. Few practitioners and teachers of science will spontaneously interpret the mathematical model and its simulation in terms of narrative and story (in economics and in computational science, the practice seems to be different, though; see Section ‘Narrative Framing’). However, this does not change the validity of what has been said. Rather, it compels us to rethink education in science. If we are not taught so, we will not develop a ‘narrative eye' for what we see and do. We will simply follow the tradition and accept a system of equations as the only true and objective but otherwise meaningless collection of signs reflecting nature directly ‘as it is'.

14. In this model, the relation between mind and (natural) world is missing. In this paper, I have made use of an assumption regarding this relation in the form of the claim that enlisting narrative intelligence (or the act of narrative perception) also refers to our perception of nature (see Section Introduction and Endnote 5).

15. Here is an example for how narrative thinking influences (the production of) science. Note how important figures of mind are for the construction of a theory. In continuum physics, the basic structure of the gestalt of forces guides the choice of primitive quantities (Endnote 1). In all fields (fluids, electricity and magnetism, heat, chemical substances, translational and rotational motion), this choice takes the same form: primitive quantities for a theory are (1) the potential and (2) a fluidlike quantity, and directly related quantities such as stored amount, current, production rate, and potential difference. The primitives of modern thermodynamics are temperature and temperature difference, entropy (caloric), current and production rate of entropy. This choice is fundamentally important (Fuchs, 1986, 1987a, 1987b, 2010, pp. 1–13).