Ask the Sigma: Why the What?
A regular asks about the Sigma's disdain for the Why
I wanted to understand if your “what not why” is mostly because you write for the masses/midwits etc? As that is absolutely sound advice since the average person today is incapable of reading two paragraphs and summarising the context in their own words without making a mess of it.
That said, while the what is obviously the starting point of any actually honest or (truly) scientific observation, if at least some of us didn’t ask why we would probably be quite a bit behind technologically (whether that is good or bad is not the point for now).
I know my own mind tends to always wonder why after I note a what. I’m not arguing against the what not why position. It’s certainly practical and useful, but to me that is just the obvious and natural starting point. And I think your own work shows evidence of a mind that asks why too.
I am honestly curious how your brain works sometimes, as it helps me see different perspectives at times I would otherwise probably have not thought about.
In my experience, looking at both myself and others, I have seen that focusing immediately or excessively on the WHY of an issue is, more often than not, a subconscious attempt to avoid engaging with the necessities of the WHAT.
It’s similar to hearing a sentence or a phrase that begins with “because”. When you hear someone tell you to do something in the form “You need to do X because Y,” your natural focus is to immediately begin questioning Y rather than doing X. And while there are times that the questioning is appropriate or necessary, most times it is not. Most times it is either a distraction or an evasion, a means of putting off doing what needs to be done.
Furthermore, the more intelligent one is, the more one is prone to analysis paralysis. The more options you are capable of seeing, the more likely it is that you will spend time that should be spent getting things done on deciding what you will and what you will not do. The best musician with whom I’ve ever worked tended to find it very difficult to write a single song because he was capable of doing anything from writing an orchestral symphony to recording a bass-heavy rap song. He had too many options.
Whereas with far less talent at my disposal, then being provided with Suno, I recorded literally dozens of songs last year.
Furthermore, the question of WHY is usually answered by focusing on the WHAT. Because it’s when one focuses on the WHAT that the anomalies leading to an effective shift to the WHY are actually productive.
For example, throughout the entire text of Probability Zero, I never once questioned the concept of the (Ne) constant for effective populations. I utilized it correctly as called for by the formulas for effective population size in age-structured populations, which allowed me to develop the Selective Turnover Coefficient (d), which has proved to be important for MITTENS and absolutely vital for the next book.
It wasn’t until after Probability Zero was released and ChatGPT 5.2 was pushing back hard against the idea that (d) was truly distinct from (Ne) that I began to even consider the WHY of the latter, which turned out to be a profitable question indeed, as I was able to determine that the effective constant, as used in that capacity since the 1970s by the population geneticists, wasn’t a constant at all, but has gradually changed over the last 7,000 years at the very least.
So, I’m not opposed to the WHY. It has its place. But I don’t think it’s useful for most people to contemplate it all, and I don’t think it’s productive for even people who are capable of usefully contemplating it to make a habit of turning to it reflexively.
Leave that to the children and the Gammas.
