Only from the point of view of its function can it be understood as a whole and compared with other functionally equivalent mechanisms. Trust reduces social complexity by exceeding available information and generalizing expectations of behaviour in that it replaces missing information with an internally guaranteed security. It thus remains dependent on other reduction mechanisms developed in parallel with it, for example those of law, of organization and, of course, those of language, but it cannot, however, be reduced to them.

DEFINE: Defines trust functionally as a mechanism that 'generalizes expectations' and 'replaces missing information' — a precise conceptual framework. QUESTION: How does the 'internally guaranteed security' distinguish trust from mere optimism or faith in other systems?

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 325