This is the last resort in the case where all else fails. So the devas and Brahmas are really magical and supernatural beings which arises due to our merits and powers in meditation. They have the following properties, to be interpreted literally.
●
Spontaneous rebirth
●
Invisible, but can reveal themselves, or be seen via divine eye
●
Blissful, but not end of suffering
●
Long life
●
Many levels
●
Superior powers, but limited knowledge
●
Virtuous conduct needed to be reborn here
●
Powers of instant travelling
●
Luminous light shining forth from them
●
One for each world
Our human
ancestors are devolution of these devas due to their greed for delicious food.
Experimental
verification awaits those who had died and be reborn there or obtained the
divine eye to be able to see directly for oneself if devas truly exists and
their nature.
There is no
need to access probability of devas existing if this possibility is true, as it
is one, or certainty. Comments: the existence of devas would be additional laws
of nature outside of currently known physics and also all of the possibilities
mentioned before. Specifically the laws of kamma, rebirth, mind (supernatural
powers and Brahma realms from Jhana meditations).
Now for a
bit of curiosity, if we assume that if devas exists, we can use the probability
analysis of inclusion-exclusion principle to obtain the union of the various
ways the devas can exist, then we get close to the total probability which
devas exist.
The
weaknesses of this analysis is the subjective probabilities I had assigned
earlier and later on and the incompleteness of our level of understanding in
physics (these probabilities will change as we update physics in the future,
new ones might come out). Also in listing down the ten characteristics of devas
and multiplying the probabilities from there together, I had assumed they are
all independent characteristics of each other, which is most likely not the
case.
1.
Probability that aliens exists: 99%
2.
Probability that higher dimension exists: 30%
3.
Probability that brane multiverse exists: 25%
4.
Probability that advanced intelligence exists: 98%
5.
Probability that dark matter or dark energy exists and allows
beings to exists consisting of them: 50%
6.
Probability that we are in a simulated universe: 10%
7.
Probability of the Union of the above (using inclusion-exclusion
principle and assuming that the probabilities of the above six are independent
of each other): 99.995275%
8.
Probability that supernatural stuffs exists apart from the above
(splitting the remaining probability equally for the last two): 0.0023625%
9.
Probability that none of the above are true: 0.0023625%
A bit of
comment on the subjective placement of the above probabilities, I think it’s fairly certain that the universe will contain
aliens and advanced intelligence as a result of them, the others are relatively
low probabilities of actually being true as they are quite radical.
Using the
law of total probabilities then, we calculate the probabilities that devas
exists to be: 33%. That is pretty high considering that most people thought
that science precludes the possibilities of gods existing, whereas in this
percentage estimation, the vast majority of it is assuming that gods are one of
the six hypothesis above or a combination of them, with only 0.0023625%
probability that gods are magical. Most of the probabilities goes towards gods
as aliens. Do be reminded that this value will change with our knowledge of the
universe and also by personal subjective valuation of likelihood differing from
person to person.
Seeing the
probabilities for devas existing according to our current knowledge of physics,
speculation of science fiction and future possibilities is less than half, and
a wide room of error given the sloppy methodology, we can hardly blame anyone
for not believing in gods. Yet seeing the significant value of that
probability, we cannot blame Buddhists or indeed anyone for professing faith in
these unseen beings. It is pretty certain that in the future, people will look
back at this chapter and laugh what ignorant fools we were for thinking in error
most of the stuffs written here.
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