Here's my interpretation of what Varela has to say about trust from a
biological (communicative) perspective.
The mind/nervous system generates possibilities in the form of very
fine "oscillators" that are looking for a match. (In linguistic
terms, these might be words, phrases, sentences, images, etc -
although these occur at a higher level than he is dealing with.)
It looks for those incoming "oscillators" for which a resonance can be
readily established. Where there is no resonance, it ignores or
avoids more of that stream of incoming signal. Where there is
resonance, it follows to path towards its source.
This might be a description of how rapport is established. Trust is
the result of this kind of rapport. That is, your output (that I can
monitor) matches what I am generating. The strongest level will be
where there is a positive match. The lesser level will be where
there is a match of understanding or recognition even if not
agreement or liking. The least will be where there is a minor match
or trivial match. Where there is no match, there is no rapport and
no trust.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.ukLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>