Metaphorical Phase Changes

In the past, I've noted that yellow thinking often examines the formation of stable, persistent forms in the midst of constant movement and change. Water is an exceptionally good metaphor to use in understanding this. We can metaphorically map the logic of the water and material world to the domain of abstract substances and forms, and then use this imported logic to make inferences.

In a glass of water, the water molecules move fairly freely, unconstrained by strong bonds to each other. Water still sticks together cohesively, but it will fill a container of any shape. If left alone, it will interact with its surroundings and eventually reach a mutually stable temperature.

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If you put it in the freezer, the colder atmosphere will cool the water down and eventually solidify and crystallize it into ice. The ice still interacts with its surroundings, air molecules continue to bounce off its surface, but these interactions don't change its state -- unless your freezer quits working.

If you take the ice out of the freezer and put it on the stove, it will first melt and then evaporate into steam. As sufficient heat energy is provided, the bonds between water molecules break, and eventually their cohesive attraction is overcome, freeing the water molecules to float off into the air. If you can catch the steam and cool it back down, eventually you'll end up with ice again.

In all phases, water molecules are in motion. In gas phase, they move freely. In liquid phase, they move and flow together, cohesively. In solid phase, they are rigidly constrained, yet they still vibrate. There is continual motion, and yet, some phases still display order. An ice cube has fairly clear and stable boundaries. Liquid water in a glass has clear boundaries, but they are fluid and only semi-stable.

We can metaphorically understand the creation of order, stability, and stasis out of disorder, instability, and change as phase changes of a substance. This metaphor maps the inferential logic of phase changes from the source domain of the material world into the abstract domain of forms. Using the source domain logic in this new domain, the metaphorical mapping has certain inferential entailments:

• Creating order requires removing energy.
• Destroying order requires adding energy.
• Energy added or removed comes from the environment.
• A stable form consists of elements in motion on a smaller scale.
• Constraints on an element's motion take the form of links to other elements.
• Stability is temporary and subject to change if environmental conditions change.
• Applying energy to or removing energy from the whole form will affect all of the constituent elements.
• Interactions involving the constituent elements can change or destroy the whole form, when taken en masse, but individually have little effect.

The metaphor works well for a variety of cases, but notably fails when applied to cases where energy can come from within a form. In such cases, a different metaphorical understanding is required.