How to increase ram

RAM is a physical piece of hardware. You can only increase it by putting a larger stick of RAM in your computer. And that depends on which Mac you have. Since you've posted in the Notebooks forum, I'm guessing you have a MacBook which likely can't be upgraded.

RAM is hardware. Are you asking about RAM, however, or storage? Storage is hardware also. You can’t increase either with software.

Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: I’m sure the software guys can fix it.

Why not? Why couldn’t we increase the amount of RAM and the size of it stay the same or get smaller?

RAM goes into a slot on the system board (if it's not the type that's directly soldered to it). The slot and RAM for each computer is designed to match the specs of the rest of the board. Once the board has been manufactured, you can't just swap out a bigger slot for a smaller one to add more in the same space.

Here's an example of a Windows PC board. This is just one of literally thousands of similar boards, but the basic concept is the same whether it's a PC or Mac. RAM, CPU, slots on the left of this design for an accelerated video card and two other expansion boards, etc.

I circled the RAM slots of this board on the right. They're not only soldered down to the board, but also have many printed circuits running from those to the CPU and memory controller. You can't just yank them out. All you can do is take out smaller RAM sticks that plug into them, and put larger ones of the same specs in their place. Such as taking out four, 4 GB sticks and putting in four 8 GB sticks. And they have to be designed for those slots.

I personally haven’t learned enough to really say, so I ask questions…

And that's good. That's how we all learn. But from what you've posted so far, you're going to have to read a lot more about how computers work.