Is maths direct experience.

[Stick]

The most fundamental and verifiable truth is direct experience. If you directly experience something, it is the truth, is it real.
In the same way, isnt math just a bunch of logic? Cant we experience logic in our mind? Does that mean we directly experience math and it is also a undeniable truth? 
for eg : How do we know 1+1 = 2? Logic. And we directly experience that logic. We feel it in our mind and conclude that 1+1 = 2. 
What is logic anyway except guidance for the truth to express itself.
If someone has any insight on this topic please share it, I am still a bit confused. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Is it?

Or is it a language? A language is a concept. Or overlay. Added onto experience.

The operations surely aren't direct experience: plus, minus, power, root, factorial.... These are man made concepts for observed behaviour. 

Edited 18 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Eskilon]

Yes, but it is a meta point.

When Leo or anyone talks about direct experience, they usually means the pure/clean reality.

But if reality is one thing, "concepts" and language must be direct experience and reality. They dont exist outside reality. Concepts are direct experience too because you are experiencing them.

Edited 16 hours ago by Eskilon

[Davino]

I see imaginary numbers everywhere

[Salvijus]

Math is logical but that's not what math is. Math is a way of describing reality. 

Logical just means an accurate translation of meaning between different languages, symbols or domains of reality. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Salvijus

[Leo Gura]

Usually when we say "direct experience" we exclude the conceptual domain.

Math is in the conceptual domain. But of course you do directly experience the conceptual domain and you do directly experience mathematical truths, which is why you are able to do math at all.

The problem is that you also directly experience conceptual falsehoods too. You can do your logic wrong and think you are right.

Edited 12 hours ago by Leo Gura

[gettoefl]

Math is logically true, not experientially true. We do not experience mathematics itself, only the thought of it appearing coherent. When we say we “directly experience” that 1+1=2, what we are actually experiencing is a sense of mental obviousness. That same experience persists even when the conclusion fails. For example, in absolute reality one plus one remains one, or in the world when one clone is added to another identical clone and result is still only one clone, not two. This shows that direct experience does not always validate interpretations; it only confirms presence. Confusion arises when coherence of thought is mistaken for revelation of truth.

[thierry]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You can do your logic wrong and think you are right.

That’s simply being a bad mathematician. There are many of them, but there is nothing intrinsically false or illusory about mathematics. One can practice mathematics at a level of abstraction where what unfolds in the mind is seen clearly and truthfully, and remains fully true within the invented world of mathematics, a world that is, of course, a limited form of intelligence. Of course, there are other forms of intelligence beyond mathematics. Yet, if we are being honest, is there truly any domain that, in a sober state of mind, surpasses mathematics in its capacity to refine and sharpen human intelligence?

 

[Joseph Maynor]

What is direct experience?  

[Hojo]

Its made up by subjects.

[Joseph Maynor]

19 minutes ago, Hojo said:

Its made up by subjects.

The subjects thing happened when Universities were created, if not before.  I guess -- it's natural to class things by category, as Aristotle was obsessed with, after his disgust and/or reaction to his teacher Plato.

[Eskilon]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What is direct experience?

Direct experience.

[Hojo]

@Joseph Maynor The subjects don't exist on Earth. How many grains of dirt are there on the earth to the earth.

If an alien saw a human and then was asked how many arms does it have the alien would day the human is just arms connected to a center.

If you say how many apples are on this tree you could say its all the same tree so 1. 

Theres something else doing the seperation and thats the seperation itself. Seperation is doing math.

A number taking itself out of infinity is saying I'm not part of your number scheme im seperate from that so now I can do the math.

Math isn't real because seperation is illusory.

Edited 4 hours ago by Hojo

[Joseph Maynor]

4 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

Direct experience.

It's one thing to recognize this, it's another thing to try to define it.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joseph Maynor Ha! I was waiting for someone to drive into the assumed definition that would unravel this subject.

Speaking for myself 'direct experience' is the codependent subject/object arising of what I constitute 'reality' absent of any interpretation.

The closest thing I can get to words pointing to the idea; pure being experience or 'isness'. Subject/object arising beneath thought. Beneath the label. Beneath the interpretation. It is sensation & perception. Thoughts about the experience immediately remove the 'direct' portion of experience. This is why when I reside in a state of 'being' absent of thought, I feel I am closest to nature, existence, reality. Truth. Because nature does not think about itself. Myself absent of thought is the closest I can get to this 'direct' experience. Closest to true nature and reality.

This is just my current understanding.

So mathematics, to me, is the additional syntactic language humans have created to express natural rules that groups of 'things' adhere to. This is why it feels simultaniously 'discovered' and 'invented'. The patterns appear whether we choose to notice them or not. But noticing them and applying the conceptual 'rules' or language immediately removes one from the direct, sensation based experience of the thing. There is one banana. Now there are two bananas.

Mathematics for this reason, to my view, is not direct. This is not to say it does not exist. But that it as a conceptual overlay to explain the playfulness of reality.

Edited 4 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Eskilon]

14 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

It's one thing to recognize this, it's another thing to try to define it.

You cant define it, only experience it. 

Define orgarsm.

Edited 4 hours ago by Eskilon

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Joseph Maynor How do you define 'direct experience', in your personal view?

I admit, mine is a work in progress because at the end of the day I gave it a crack - but I really do not know.  I just have some sprinkles of inkling toward it, based in meditative experience  

[Joseph Maynor]

2 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@Joseph Maynor How do you define 'direct experience', in your personal view?

I admit, mine is a work in progress because at the end of the day I gave it a crack - but I really do not know.  I just have some sprinkles of inkling toward it, based in meditative experience  

I feel like direct experience doesn't need a definition to be honest.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

8 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I feel like direct experience doesn't need a definition to be honest.

Hiding in plain sight 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 minute ago, Joseph Maynor said:

How does one hide in plain sight?

Through the fog of thoughts and concepts. The human condition that mostly arises from the social domain. 

Useful, for sure. Valid. But not without the drawbacks of occasionally presenting a distraction from the beauty of being. The beauty of raw feeling, emotion. Sensation. Perception. 

I think concept and thought is required to arrive at a place of peace after the journey of life. 

Just my thoughts and experience 🤍