Some question if the “I” exists today in the effort to deconstruct the human mind. people probably weren’t troubled much by such issues 25,000 years ago when the first permanent human settlement known on Earth was being constructed in the Levant on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
It is popular to deny the exist of free will for some that also seek to eclipse the existence of self. That seems like the kind of venture post-modernists specializing in interior living would prefer while contemplating a Jackson Pollack painting on a wall.
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (or Mind) does have a master-slave relationship In a chapter on Lord and Bondsman. The overall dialectic is about God realizing Himself through history. He described how the relationship of dependence/independence in the chapter on Lordship and bondage served to evolve the bonded to independence with the dialectic. Here is a quote from a Shannon Bell lecture; “In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, the “Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness,” particularly the “Lordship and Bondage” section, explores how self-consciousness arises through a struggle for recognition, where one entity (the Lord) initially seeks independence while the other (the Bondsman) initially experiences dependence, ultimately leading to a dialectical synthesis of mutual recognition and interdependence.”
A philosopher commented that Hegel’s is a Messianic kind of thing. Because he posited Germany as the highest expression of the evolving Spirit as of his time, perhaps to please the King of Prussia, that might have trickled down to swell the egos of those with a military, expansionist point of view eventually. Life was so much simpler in 20,000 B.C.
I should say that it has been quite a while since I read the Phenomenology of Spirit; about 45 years although I read the shorter ‘Realms of Absolute Spirit’ 35 years ago.. I didn’t recall the point about the struggle for people to realize themselves. That slave-master (in some cases) relationship didn’t make a lasting impression on how I viewed the work within the broad context of God realizing himself in history. An AI summarized the lord-bondsman relationship this way; “Desire for Recognition:
Self-consciousness, according to Hegel, is fundamentally a being-for-itself, a subject that needs recognition from another subject to fully realize itself.
The Life-and-Death Struggle:
The desire for recognition can lead to a conflict where individuals are willing to risk their lives to assert their own existence and the other’s.
The Nature of the Struggle:
This struggle is not merely a physical battle, but a struggle for the recognition of one’s own freedom and the other’s.
Death as a Catalyst:Death, in this context, is not the end, but a necessary condition for the development of self-consciousness.
The Emergence of Master and Slave:The struggle to the death can result in the emergence of a master and a slave consciousness, where one consciousness is willing to risk death for recognition, while the other is forced into a position of dependence.”
Fortunately AI isn’t self aware at this point, and isn’t struggling to realize itself and others.
https://suno.com/song/fac25bac-0969-49dc-b2d8-0caa70ebb4c3?sh=ZpPkanrYMdNN2OOL
Garrison Gibson: books and blog 