Do happiness-distress have objective reality or are they just mental constructs?
Hare Krishna we cannot see the spiritual so why should we believe the spiritual I am rephrasing your question so that I can answer it will you please allow me to answer so earlier you were talking about whether there is an objective reality to happiness and distress I explained it physically there is a reality which I am denying as far as the spiritual is concerned the fundamental reality that enables us to perceive all reality that is consciousness if you were not conscious you would not be able to think what is real and what is not real if I were not conscious I would not be able to perceive what is real and what is unreal so consciousness is the fundamental reality that enables us to perceive all realities and consciousness has no material origin material materially speaking this is but it is made of the same thing as my body and my brain it is ultimately made of atoms and molecules or fundamental particles none of them have consciousness so none of them have remotely anything that resembles consciousness so consciousness is the fundamental reality and that consciousness has no material explanation there is a Dr.Wilder Penfield who is a famous neurosurgeon he is considered the father of neurosurgery and he did experiments on the human brain for almost 40 years and he wrote a book called the history of the mind in which he after his study he gave many experiments one experiment I will tell you he had a subject you know that different parts of the brain are connected with different functions of the body so he asked the subject to raise the hand subject raised the hand and then what happened? he said I raised my hand and he found that the particular part of the brain which controls the motor nervous system which causes the hand to raise that part of the brain was activated he put the hand down that part of the brain got deactivated in the second case he externally activated that part of the brain hand went up he asked the subject what happened? he said my hand went up did you raise your hand? no I didn't, you did he deactivated that part of the brain my hand fell down did you put your hand down? no I didn't who did? you did so Dr. Penfield asked the question in the second case he was the activator of that part of the brain he as an external agent activated that part of the brain which caused the hand to rise and fall in the first case who was the activator? he activated different parts of the brain but no part of the brain ever gave the person the sense of agency that I am doing things so he concluded after 40 years of brain research that the brain is like a computer but it is programmed by something outside of itself the source of consciousness is extra cerebral so that extra cerebral non material reality that is the source of consciousness that is what we call as soul that is the spiritual the spiritual is the foundational reality because of which we can debate whether this is real or that is real so the spiritual is something which we can intellectually understand and through the process of meditation we can practically experience thank you.