In society, humans interact together and share information. Information can be understood based on prerequisites. For now, I will look only at exchanging information through language (verbal or written).
Prerequisite 1: Using a language spoken and understood by the two parts
This is the obvious one. But it is not sufficient because language represents data, and because it is a representation, it can’t be universally represented. So each individual has a different representation of data shared by words. That leads us to the second prerequisite.
Prerequisite 2: Two individuals must have close enough representations of words.
That explains why we have difficulties understanding each other even when speaking the same language.
There are many things to say about the exchange of information through speech, but for the sake of my article, I will stop at two prerequisites.
Let's imagine that I’ve created two entities that integrate those two prerequisites; you can think of them as a simple algorithm they follow.
Discussion A:
Entity 1: The prices of carrots have gone up.
Entity 2: Yes, there is a shortage of carrots.
Discussion A is a basic human interaction. Entity 1 shares an observation regarding a change in what he refers to as the prices of carrots. In this very basic sentence, there is a lot of compressed data shared tacitly because they interact with the same language and have close enough interpretations of data represented by words (cf. prerequisites 1 and 2). I will not decompress all the compressed data in this discussion (because it is boring as hell and I will probably do a poor job at it), but it is important to realize that we share huge amounts of data quite naturally, and I believe this has to play a role in our evolution.
Can you think of a way to increase the compression of Discussion A?
Try to express the same concept in fewer words.
Here is a compressed version of Discussion A:
Law of supply and demand applied to carrots.
Here we refer to a concept that explains the dynamic observed in Discussion A. It can also explain other dynamics such as the evolution of prices of potatoes or tomatoes. Let's rethink our first discussion with the knowledge of the law of supply and demand.
Discussion B:
Entity 1: The prices of carrots have gone up.
Entity 2: The law of supply and demand explains it.
As you can see, compressing information is not only about reducing words in a given discussion; it is about using words that represent greater data than others. Here, the law of supply and demand can explain a lot of observations. Discussion A explains only why the prices of carrots have increased, while Discussion B can explain why prices of any given vegetable have increased.
Cool, we have compressed our first discussion! Now let's get to the point of this article (finally).
Entity 1 can be satisfied with the statement “The law of supply and demand explains it.” But he can also be unsatisfied by this statement. The law of supply and demand explains a lot of things but can’t explain itself. To find an explanation for the law of supply and demand, Entity 1 can say: Why?
This word means that Entity 2 must explain his latest statement. Why does the law of supply and demand exist?
Here we’ve seen that by asking Why? you go deeper into the explanations.
In society, I’ve observed that people tend to gravitate around a certain level of explanations (and that makes sense). First, we introduce ideas, then we explain them to clarify, but it is quite often useless to get into too much detail simply because we often stop at the explanations that satisfy observed reality. It is important to notice that, at any given point, our knowledge does not suffice to explain reality entirely; so, we usually content ourselves with simple explanations because they make sense in a pragmatic way.
I want to draw a parallel with what Vaclav Smil describes in his book How the World Really Works. He talks about black boxes, words that we use in society but do not fully understand (e.g., AI, climate change, or mRNA messenger). As we've seen, there are benefits for compressing information, but when it is overly compressed and shared widely, it loses clarity because individuals cannot decompress it effectively. This leads to large-scale, homogeneous, simplified interpretations of the word.
Asking Why? in society is a way to decompress information, and it is essential in a complex society where many black boxes are shared and relayed by individuals, platforms, institutions, and governments. Why? is a tool to deepen a conversation; it is very powerful but mustn’t be overused because decompression takes time, which can bring down the effectiveness of a conversation.