Trust reduces social complexity by replacing missing information with guaranteed security

Evidence

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Institutionalized money trust replaces countless individual acts of personal trust; Trust reduces the truster’s complexity while transferring that burden onto the trusted — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 245; Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 256 (+9 more)

Related

• Trust functions by pruning the over-complex future to fit the present (similarity 0.95)
• Trust reduces future complexity where instrumental mastery cannot (similarity 0.93)
• Trust reduces complexity by substituting inner certainty for external certainty (similarity 0.91)
• Trust reduces future complexity by committing to a determinate future (similarity 0.90)
• Differentiated societies need more trust to reduce their greater complexity (similarity 0.90)
• Trust reduces the truster’s complexity while transferring that burden onto the trusted (similarity 0.90)
• Trust expands a system’s complexity potential and buys it time (similarity 0.89)
• Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust (similarity 0.89)
• Trusting always exceeds available evidence; reasons for trust are retrospective self-justification (similarity 0.89)
• Reflexive trust can absorb more uncertainty with less risk (similarity 0.87)
• Trust expands the complexity a social system can sustain. (similarity 0.87)
• Trust and law evolved from a common root into differentiated mechanisms (similarity 0.86)
• Trust reduces the complexity created by other people’s freedom (similarity 0.86)
• System trust reduces complexity through explicit human decision processes, not naive familiarity (similarity 0.86)
• Growing social complexity increases the need for trust in the present (similarity 0.86)

Broader Connections

• Trust reduces complexity by substituting inner certainty for external certainty #corroborates (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 154
• Trust reduces future complexity by committing to a determinate future #corroborates (0.70) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 138
• Trust functions by pruning the over-complex future to fit the present #corroborates (0.60)
• Trust reduces future complexity where instrumental mastery cannot #corroborates (0.55)
• Trust substitutes knowledge of system structure for unavailable information about others. #corroborates (0.50)