For over two millennia, Aristotle’s theory of mimesis has dominated the Western tradition of linear narrative, rooted in humanity’s early linear cognition of nature through sequential storytelling. However, 20th-century nonlinear science revealed the intrinsic
nonlinear characteristics of reality, subverting this perception and posing a core question for art: How to narrativize complex nonlinear reality?This interdisciplinary study employs core nonlinear scientific theories (chaos theory, fractal theory, soliton theory, dissipative structure theory) as analytical tools to trace the evolutionary journey of narrative from literary hypertext to contemporary interactive images.The research reveals that nonlinear narrative is not merely a formal experiment but an inevitable manifestation of a scientific-philosophical paradigm shift. Its key manifestations—plot folding, recursive structures, and synergistic resonance —represent aesthetic simulations of world complexity. As the current pinnacle of nonlinear narrative, interactive images resolve the dilemmas of early forms (hypertext fiction, branching cinema) through technological means, achieving profound integration of science and art at the level of “complexity.”