There is no need to ask here what makes the other “independent” or “self-sufficient”. It may be that as an instantiation of life the other bears a form of infinity, giving it the capacity of ever lasting regeneration. But this is not the point. The point is that self-consciousness depends on the existence of an independent other. Being a negative relation to itself, it only is as the movement of returning to itself by sublating the other. “For this act of sublating even to be, there must be this other.” (§175) This is why the object of desire proves to be indestructible. The experience of the ever-spoiled satisfaction only makes it evident how self-conscious- ness is in a contradictory relation to the world of objects. It further renders manifest that a true satisfaction can never be attained in this immediate way, by relating to an other that exists in the mode of things. A thing can either be or not be; it can be either independent or dependent, either affirmed or negated, but it cannot be both at the same time: some- thing will therefore always be missing for effective satisfaction.