Our eyes are very limited: they can handle neither the extremely small nor the extremely large. This means, then, that our world, our universe, our everything, is perceived in terms of objects which the eye can parse.
The scope of the human eye has been artificially extended, and a good thing it is, too. We can now observe, of course, tiny slivers of living matter beneath a microscope and use binoculars to intrude on Mars during its (her?) occasional visits. I'd argue, however, that such powers are so incidental that they in no way invalidate the premise of the first sentence.
If it were natural to be able to observe macroscopic bodies on an atom-by-atom basis, then I am content to state that such an arrangement constitutes our reality. There is, in that case, no such thing as a macroscopic object, only a collection of n atoms.
Deriving the existence of anything greater than an atom would require a leap of faith, mitigated by technology or by insight, but would not change the 'everyday reality' of what we observe - 'just' atoms, with no greater organistion or purpose. For despite our new awareness that there are macroscopic objects, we are too accustomed to the atomic perspective to see the world any other way.
Back in the more familiar world, scientists who declare that large occurrences (say, an earthquake) can be explained by the multiple interactions of small occurrences (say, the interaction of n atoms) are known as reductionists.
_________________________________________________________
I am typing at twenty minutes to two in the morning, stranded in a bubble of misery that I've been unable to burst for days now.
Christ, I complain bitterly to myself, I have no wish to live like this any longer. In asserting that unhappiness is the sum total of my existence, am I similarly in need of situations which artificially extend the repetoire of thoughts that I have? Am I seeing only depressive 'atoms' which form part of a superstructure of conflicting, overlapping emotions?
Perhaps the state of mind of being depressed serves, in itself, to make a human being into a card-carrying reductionist? I think there is probably some truth in that. Depressive thoughts propagate a feedback loop which leads to more depressive thoughts. Only when the creative insight occurs to break the circle that reduces every gesture or cognition to a negative one can depression be at least partially negated.
