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. It may be based on the fact that the object of trust fulfils an indispensable function for the internal structure – the processing of experience. A weakening of trust, accordingly, would have very far-reaching consequences for self-assurance, and will not be countenanced as a possibility because it would lead to extensive changes in internal dispositions for which the system lacks time, energy or endorsement by the environment. In quite the reverse way, the certainty of trust may depend on a more strongly differentiated internal system, with the consequence that the failure of the object of trust can inflict only partial and isolated damage and the object of trust can be replaced by functional equivalents. In both cases the primary support of trust comes from the functions it plays in the ordering of information-processing internal to the system, rather than directly from guarantees originating in the environment.

DEFINE: Clarifies a systems-theoretic conception: trust operates as an internal information-processing mechanism that manages the complexity gap by substituting internal for external certainty.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 154