Undefined Geometry Terms

Hi, Jake.

Your "definition" would require us to first define "ray" and
"direction." Can you do that without reference to "point," "line," and
"plane"?

Think of it this way: Math is a huge building, in which each part is
built by a solid line of inference upon other parts below it. What is
the foundation? What is everything else built on?

There must be some lowest level that is not based on anything else;
otherwise the whole thing is circular, and never really starts
anywhere. The "undefined terms" are part of that foundation, along
with other things like rules of inference that tell us that logic
itself is true. The goal of mathematicians like Euclid has not been to
make math entirely self-contained, with no undefined terms, but to
minimize the number of them so that we have to accept only a few
basics, and from there will find all of math to be absolutely certain.
Also, the goal is to make those terms "obvious," so that we have no
trouble accepting them, even though we can't formally prove their
existence.

To put it another way, these terms do have a definition, in human
terms; we can easily understand what they mean. They simply don't have
a mathematical definition in the sense of depending only on other
previously defined terms.

I search our archives for the word "undefined" and found these pages
that may help you:

Unproven Fundamentals of Geometry

What is a point?