Glen-
Just to match your combative with my own: The circularity is critical
in my opinion, to understanding how we actually interact with each
other. Our models of stereotypical individuals (e.g. Limbaugh, Penrose,
Guerin) do not invoke this so clearly as our more personal relations.
The regression is *damped* so there is no strong need to fear ringing in
the system, though I *do* think that in intimate relations, people do go
into feedback loops, usually near the end of a relationship (or episode
of a relationship for the more complex types). This is roughly what
I think we call "second guessing" each other.
I think your model using basins of attraction is apt. I agree that
"closeness" of relation changes the scale, but not necessarily the sense
of trust. Strong trust offers the possibility of equally strong
betrayal. On the other hand, empathic relations suggest biases. I
"trust" people more easily who I perceive to be "like" me, and
"distrust" people I perceive to be "unlike" me... thus the basis of
xenophobia and ultimately prejudice and bigotry. Con men (and women)
use these biases all the time... manipulate other's level of trust (in
both directions) in order to gain advantage.
I will restate my implied claim that trust based on empathy is
qualitatively different than other types of trust. Empathetic trust
broken is betrayal, other types of trust broken is just "bad judgement"
or "bad luck"? Many here are someone's ex (lover, spouse, friend) and
as a result have probably noticed the qualitative change that happens
when one finally (though some never go this far) breaks the bond of
empathy, they go from an understanding/caring relationship to something
else (often cynical analogs of the original empathetic feelings?).
I trust you to respond in an argumentative (combative?) manner... which
is part of your charm, of course.
- Steve
Steve Smith wrote at 08/17/2013 04:40 PM:
I would say I "trust" people more who I believe to have an empathic
response to me, and in general I believe that this is a resonant
phenomena, that those whom I am empathetic with, are also more
empathetic with me, etc. So a strong empathetic bond with someone
leads me to "trust" them in a different way than I trust Rush
Limbaugh (or Roger Penrose). My wife, my children, even Steve Guerin
(when we are drinking together anyway).
Very interesting. You're talking about the _tightness_ of a coupling,
I think. Empathy is already a great example of circular reasoning
because it consists of you thinking about some thing/person as if you
were that thing/person. That opens the door to an infinite regress
(you thinking about you thinking about you thinking about ...).
But you've added yet another layer of circularity on top of it: you
thinking about another as if you were them, thinking about you as if
they were you. In the end, that means you're talking about coupling
between two objects, rather than a simple iteration within an object.
And it's further, practically, reinforced by your mention of sensing
the bond with people you have face to face, deeply intimate, or
psychoactively induced/enhanced relationships. All three of those
(f2f, intimacy, and psychoactive adjuncts) are classically effective
methods for building trust.
I would maintain, however, ... just to be combative I suppose, that
such tight circularity can lead to just as much _distrust_ as it does
trust. In particular, systems consisting of lots of feedback (and
feedforward) loops would be more likely to exhibit unpredictable
transitions from one attractor basin to another. You could quickly go
from feeling trusting toward a person/thing to feeling betrayed by
that person/thing. (This is why I love my Buell... I will never
"trust" the thing to carry me safely across, say, Death Valley. And
that's because I trust it to be untrustworthy. ;-)
I suppose you might say that betrayal is an _acute_ form of distrust.
So, perhaps it's reasonable to say that the tight circularity just
changes the character of the trust, from chronic (loose coupling) to
acute (tight coupling).
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