Trust functions by pruning the over-complex future to fit the present

Evidence

As against this, there is the future orientation of trust. Trust is only possible in a familiar world; it needs history as a reliable background. One cannot confer trust without this essential basis and without all previous experiences. But rather than being just an inference from the past, trust goes beyond the information it derives from the past and takes the risk of defining the future. The complexity of the future world is reduced by the act of trust. In trusting, one engages in action as though there were only certain possibilities in the future. One fixes one’s present future to a future present. In this way one offers other people a determinate future, a common future, which is not readily apparent from the past. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 138 (#expands, via linked claim)

The system substitutes inner certainty for external certainty9 and in so doing raises its tolerance of uncertainty in external relationships. The problem of the complexity gap thereby shifts to some extent into the secondary problem of inner certainty. Inner certainty can come about in two different, indeed opposite, ways – and it is largely because of this that the development of trust can be pretty reliably anticipated time and again, despite very diverse system conditions. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 154 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Trust forms sequentially by reducing social complexity over discrete steps; Modern trust takes the form of trust in specialized information processing; Trust reduces the truster’s complexity while transferring that burden onto the trusted — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 245 (+14 more)

Related

• Trust reduces social complexity by replacing missing information with guaranteed security (similarity 0.95)
• Trust reduces future complexity where instrumental mastery cannot (similarity 0.94)
• Trust reduces future complexity by committing to a determinate future (similarity 0.91)
• Trust stabilizes decision-making by pruning an over-complex future down to the present (similarity 0.89)
• Trust expands a system’s complexity potential and buys it time (similarity 0.89)
• Trust reduces complexity by substituting inner certainty for external certainty (similarity 0.89)
• Trust reduces the overwhelming complexity of the future to fit the present (similarity 0.89)
• Trust reduces the truster’s complexity while transferring that burden onto the trusted (similarity 0.88)
• Trusting always exceeds available evidence; reasons for trust are retrospective self-justification (similarity 0.87)
• Modern trust takes the form of trust in specialized information processing (similarity 0.87)
• Contracting, not trust, brings the future into the present (similarity 0.87)
• Differentiated societies need more trust to reduce their greater complexity (similarity 0.87)
• Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust (similarity 0.87)
• Trust and law evolved from a common root into differentiated mechanisms (similarity 0.86)
• Familiarity prevents trust from becoming a conscious problem; doubt reopens it. (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Trust reduces future complexity by committing to a determinate future #expands (0.90) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 138
• Trust reduces complexity by substituting inner certainty for external certainty #expands (0.70) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 154
• Trust reduces future complexity where instrumental mastery cannot #corroborates (0.60)
• System trust reduces complexity through explicit human decision processes, not naive familiarity #corroborates (0.55)
• Trust operates through uncommunicated inferences rather than explicit justification #qualifies (0.40)