The Definition of Kokoro, A Non-Ideological Systems Theory, Something Beyond Trust, and Incidentally, a Theory of Japanese Culture

The Definition of Kokoro, A Non-Ideological Systems Theory, Something Beyond Trust, and Incidentally, a Theory of Japanese Culture Abstract: The Definition of Kokoro, Trust as Systems Theory, and "Something Beyond Trust" Our society runs on trust. However, much of this is an "insurance-like" trust, designed on the premise of betrayal. Economies and institutions are fundamentally based on "estimating the worst case and mitigating damage." In zero-sum games, this is the minimax principle; in general-sum games, it is the Nash Equilibrium. Yet, there is a higher level. When a relationship exists where we are confident not only that the other will not betray us, but that they will choose the good beyond their own self-interest, we can shift our helm from risk minimization to value maximization. This is where Confucian Chūjo (devoted sincerity and the wisdom to gauge others by oneself), the Buddhist Four Immeasurables (Jihikisha: loving-kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity), and Christian Agapē come into play. The common core is ungrudging generosity. To rephrase this in systems theory: Virtue (Kokoro): The attitude of making others' concerns one's own. Action: Giving / Sympathetic joy / Letting go of attachment. Institution: Amplifying and insuring the effects of virtue through transparency, consistency, and accountability. Trust cannot stand on (3) alone. (1) is the leading indicator, (2) is the daily operation, and (3) prepares for external shocks. There are real-world examples in economics. The Omi merchants' Sanpō Yoshi ("three-way good": for seller, buyer, and society) is a classic case of kokoro-based trust lowering transaction costs and creating positive externalities. As a community matures, in some rare cases, a "Nihō Yoshi" ("two-way good": for others and society) implicitly operates. Here, even without explicitly stating "good for self," giving (gifting) circulates, and the fear of scarcity diminishes. At this stage, trust is no longer a conscious object but a saturated environment. Institutional costs lighten, and resources available for creation increase. So, what is Kokoro? The character originates from a pictograph of the heart, and many virtues feature the 'heart' radical (心/忄). In Japanese thought, it was passed down from the ancient Seimeishin (pure/bright heart), to the medieval Shōjiki (honesty), to the early-modern Makoto (sincerity). I wish to define Kokoro as the internal engine that attenuates fear and drives giving (gifting). Conclusion: Trust is not a substitute for monitoring; it is a device for amplifying the act of giving. From a design optimized for fear, to a design premised on ungrudging generosity. When we reassemble in the order of Kokoro (Virtue) -> Action -> Institution, we can transition from a "world of risk minimization" to a "world of value maximization." ・Trust Supports Society, But Often Just Barely When you study economics, you may find that trust, or credit, is actually the hidden protagonist of the discipline. This isn't limited to economics; even in various systems where human elements are not involved, "trust," depending on its definition, could be placed at the core of the system. Setting aside such generalizations, I'd like to think about trust from a slightly different perspective, while considering a more productive system than modern economics. ・What is the Opposite of Trust? Let's consider the opposite of trust to be betrayal. This contrast is common in game theory, such as in the "Prisoner's Dilemma," "Tit-for-Tat Strategy," "Minimax Strategy," or "Nash Equilibrium." "Minimax" is the principle in zero-sum games, while for general-sum games like the Prisoner's Dilemma, it is the "Nash Equilibrium." In game theory, the final optimal value is often risk minimization rather than profit maximization. The anecdote about John von Neumann and John Nash might be somewhat famous. John Nash was the protagonist of the movie "A Beautiful Mind," famous for winning the Nobel Prize after developing schizophrenia. Nash was a mathematician, but he applied game theory to economics and proved the optimal value problem. When Nash sought von Neumann's evaluation of the "Nash Equilibrium," von Neumann is said to have offended Nash by replying, "Your talk is just an application of the fixed-point theorem." ・Trust Also Has Degrees When one trusts, the state of mind of the truster ranges widely. The low end is, "This person might betray me." The high end is a feeling like, "This person will not betray me, and even if it means sacrificing themselves, they will pour their heart and soul into doing a job that exceeds my trust." This latter sentiment is likely what is called Chūjo (faithfulness and compassion) in Confucianism, Jihikisha (the Four Immeasurables: Mercy, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity) in Buddhism, and Agapē (love) in Christianity. And in Japan, it is called Kokoro (Heart/Mind). ・What About Profit Maximization? For risk minimization, the "minimax strategy" will suffice. You consider your actions based on the premise that the other party will betray you. However, if the other party is someone who possesses truly high-quality "credit," you may be able to achieve profit maximization instead of loss minimization. And even if you do incur a loss, you can minimize the negative feelings. High-quality credit is when "you can believe the other party will not betray you and, through self-sacrifice and personal toil, will work hard for the best interests of you and the whole," and "the party who has been given that credit will also strive to the best of their ability to improve the lot of the one who gave the credit, or even something greater beyond them, even if they themselves suffer loss or harm." ・An Economic Example In matters surrounding economics, management, finance, or money, it is said that one cannot get by without assuming the worst possible credit status of the other party. However, in special circumstances, it is possible to operate without assuming this worst-case scenario. That is "when both parties possess high-quality credit and trust." In this case, both parties can devote their labor and energy not to minimizing losses, but to increasing profits, or at least moving in that direction. Conversely, the waste and inefficiency spent on reducing losses can be lessened, or in the best case, eliminated. ・Is Kokoro Important? The Confucian Chūjo, the Buddhist Jihikisha (the Four Immeasurables: Mercy, Compassion, Joy, Equanimity), the Christian Agapē (Love), and the Japanese Kokoro all have one character in common: "心" (shin or kokoro), the character for "heart/mind." Chū (忠) means sincerity and compassion. Looking at the character, it is written as "center of the heart" (中心), pointing to the core of one's heart. Jo (恕) is written as "like the heart" (如心). From the characters, it means "as the heart of the other," or to put oneself in another's shoes. Jo is generally interpreted as "compassion" or "forgiveness." Ji (慈) is loving-kindness. Hi (悲) means "to grieve for another's sorrow" or "to grieve together with another." Ki (喜) is "to rejoice in another's good fortune" or "to rejoice together with another." Sha (捨) can be interpreted as "to abandon oneself for another" or "to discard something of oneself for another's sake." Agapē (Love), in the Christian case, is a boundless love for others that includes self-sacrifice. The problem is the Japanese Kokoro. The origin, or rather the shape of the character, is said to be a pictograph of the human heart. "What is Kokoro?" This, I believe, is perhaps the greatest theme in Japanese intellectual history. What follows is my personal view. ・The Study of Kokoro During the Edo period, townspeople engaged in scholarship, forming an era that was, compared to the rest of the world at the time, exceptionally spiritually rich. Common people, in private, were studying. Among these studies was one called "Shingaku" (Heart-learning). Sekimon Shingaku, founded by Ishida Baigan in Kyoto in the early Edo period, is famous. During the Edo period, various people studied various disciplines. The range was extremely broad, but the full-scale study of Confucianism began around this time, and in fields like Kōshōgaku (evidential research), Japan likely surpassed or was ahead of mainland China. Even in the evidential study of late-Edo Chinese medical texts, Japan again surpassed China and led the world. Shingaku was influenced more by Yōmeigaku (Yangmingism) than by the Shushigaku (Zhu Xi school) within Song-dynasty learning. Yōmeigaku is the philosophy that supported the abnormal action-principle of the Shishi (the "men of high purpose" in the late-Edo period). Even outside of the Shishi, Ōshio Heihachirō of the Ōshio Heihachirō Rebellion also acted self-sacrificially for the suffering people. As of October 2025, the politicians of the Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) appear to be working for Japan in a self-sacrificial way. However, isn't it the case that at least some of the Ishin members are people who would be earning far more money in other jobs than as Diet members? They could become TV commentators or YouTubers if it came to it, and many were originally lawyers or company presidents. It seems like people who would be earning far more not being politicians are serving Japan as politicians out of a spirit of volunteerism, service, and devotion. This was true for some of the Shishi as well. Shibusawa Eiichi, on the 10,000-yen note, was from a wealthy farming family (more of a conglomerate than a simple farm) and was extremely rich, but he aspired to be a Shishi for a time. ・The Peculiarity of Shingaku and Yōmeigaku Yōmeigaku, which likely influenced Shingaku, is a very peculiar field of study. In Western philosophical terms, it is Idealism. If German Idealism is called Objective Idealism, I recall seeing Yōmeigaku referred to as Subjective Idealism somewhere. The rival to Yōmeigaku is Shushigaku (the school of Zhu Xi). This is the dualism of Ri (principle) and Ki (material force/matter). The Ri, the laws of the world, moves the Ki, the material substance of the world. When you hear Ki, you might imagine something like air or an aura, but please think of it as all material things, not just gases. It's a way of thinking very similar to modern Western science and can be considered one of the foundations of Japan's modernization. The rational direction of Song learning, which tended to separate heaven/earth/nature from humans/society, may have formed one of the bases for Japan's modernization. Yōmeigaku, by contrast, is an incredible philosophy. It does not distinguish between the concepts in one's mind and oneself. The world is, in other words, oneself, and oneself is the world. All phenomena appearing in one's consciousness are part of oneself, and oneself is merely one element within one's own consciousness. It unifies the self and the world. As a result, if one performs good deeds, the world improves, and one also improves. If one performs evil deeds, the world worsens, and one also worsens. This is called Chigyō Gōitsu (Unity of Knowledge and Action) or Chiryōchi (Innate Knowing). If the world improves, I improve, so my own life is a trivial matter. And if I improve, the world also improves. This is the reason the Shishi of the Bakumatsu period displayed what could be called a fanatical capacity for action and practiced Messhi Hōkō (self-annihilation for the public good). The "I" (private) is the "Public" (public), and the "Public" is the "I"; they are the same. It wasn't merely the existence of Bushido that enabled the Bakumatsu Shishi to literally throw away their lives and dedicate themselves to righteousness and country. The Shogunate's retainers (Bakushin) were samurai, but their ethics, or Bushido, were in a pitiful state, and they were disdained by both Tokugawa Yoshimune and Katsu Kaishū. "Kuruitamau" ("Go mad," or "Be crazy"). This is what Yoshida Shōin said to the young students of his Shōka Sonjuku (private academy). Shōin himself, if thought about in terms of intellectual profit and loss, only took actions that would result in losses. He snuck aboard Perry's Black Ships to ask for passage to America, and after being caught by the Shogunate, he preached to the guards and other prisoners about the path Japan should take. Some of this was illegal, so the guards must have thought he was crazy. His relative, and a junior disciple of the same master, was Nogi Maresuke. These two received a Spartan education. As they were poor, their master would till the fields and read aloud from texts at the field's edge. Being a field, there were small insects and mosquitoes, and if they itched and scratched their skin, the master would beat them to death. The reason was that the study of reading books is a public (kō) act, while scratching an itch is a private (shi) act. It was an act of neglecting the public for the sake of the private. Nogi Maresuke was a hero of the Russo-Japanese War, but he and his wife committed junshi (ritual suicide) upon the death of Emperor Meiji. This had a profound impact on the people of the time, especially those whose personalities were formed by an Edo-period education. The book Natsume Sōseki wrote, sparked by this incident, is "Kokoro." ・The Meaning of Kokoro There is probably no clearly defined meaning of Kokoro. In the history of Japanese ethics, we have the ancient Seimeishin (a clear and bright heart), which refers to a heart that is not "shady" (ushirogurai) or "dirty." It also abhors stinginess (Ketsi). In the middle ages, it was the ethic of Shōjiki (honesty/uprightness). This is the "honesty" from Japanese folktales that begin, "Once upon a time, there was an honest old man and an honest old woman..." In the Bakumatsu period, it became the philosophy of Makoto (sincerity/truthfulness). This is famous from the flag of the Shinsengumi. Yōmeigaku, in the Bakumatsu, was viewed as heretical by the Shogunate but was a philosophy embraced by those who called themselves shi (gentry/samurai), not just the Shishi activists. Satō Issai, whom Saigō Takamori respected and whose Genshi Shiroku (Four-Volume Record of Reflection) was his motto, was famous and known as Yō-Shu In-Ō (outwardly Zhu Xi, inwardly Wang Yangming). The phrase, "If you learn when you are young, you will have achievements when you are grown. If you learn when you are grown, you will not wane in old age. If you learn when you are old, you will not decay in death," is a saying by Satō Issai. I seem to recall Koizumi Junichirō, the father of Koizumi Shinjirō, quoting something of the sort, but I forget what. ・When Trust Has Kokoro Now, to return to the initial systems theory. I'm short on time, so I'll just give an economic example. Credit and trust are vital to the economy, but the cases written about in introductory economics textbooks are often based on low-quality credit and trust. In other words, it is an economics that seeks risk minimization. However, when the parties on either side of a loan, sale, or exchange are bound by high-quality, kokoro-based trust, they can aim for something else. The Omi merchants, who dominated the Japanese economy from the Bakumatsu to the Meiji period, spread the idea of Sanpō Yoshi ("three-way good"). They did business based on the idea of "Good for oneself, good for the other, good for society." This is an economic philosophy supported by extremely high-quality trust. Furthermore, in a group where altruism and self-sacrifice are raised to their utmost limit, an even more advanced way of thinking can be established. And we can see examples of this in reality. It is the "Nihō Yoshi" ("Two-way good"). "Good for the other, good for society" is enough. Even if you don't think about "good for oneself," someone, or society, will do good things for you. At this level, the concept of "trust," which implicitly implies betrayal, is no longer necessary. It is a world where only Kokoro exists, like the air, without trust or betrayal. When this point is reached, the economy can aim for the collective maximization of gain, rather than the minimization of risk. ・In Conclusion Where there is trust, there is betrayal; where there is betrayal, there is trust. In basic economics, both are external environments, or premises. They are like air and water. However, in a place permeated by altruism, self-sacrifice, and messhi hōkō (self-annihilation for the public good), trust and betrayal annihilate one another. Trust becomes like air and water; it no longer needs to be consciously considered. High-quality trust sublimates to the realm of Kokoro. In a place where such a state is established, the laws of economics themselves change. Instead of fearing risk, everyone can forget themselves for the sake of others, the whole, and the world, and strive and act for the good of society, and sometimes the entire planet and environment, without regard for themselves. In certain mature societies or historically high-status societies, this can sometimes be seen. In Maslow's theory of psychology, once a person's basic needs are met, they begin to value altruistic endeavors and devote resources to them. I believe this can be modified and theorized to apply to non-human entities, things without desire, materials, concrete structures, abstract systems, and various other subjects, so I would like to write an article on that when I have time.