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The logical conclusion of the geometrical mathematical materialism of Descartes and Galileo should have entailed infinite divisibility. Even then this entails classical logical issues, because it obviously entails dealing with infinite and infinitesimal magnitudes in describing how any body is composed and interacts with other bodies. But instead of discovering this infinite permeability of matter empirically, we seem to have discovered gradated holism instead, where there are fixed structures at different "levels" of complexity.
We don't know much beyond that. Our descriptions of the things we take to be atomic and fundamental are just descriptions. What they really are, and why they are what they are, is unknown. What we can say though is that the universe is differentiated into those structural levels, which is interesting in itself. Why have gradations at all? Why not just a soup of matter? Even if the higher levels are only apparent, why even have "appearances?"
What can we learn about the way the universe develops, and maybe its ground principles, based on the knowledge that it tends toward gradation and holism at higher levels?
