For some reason I edited this post and saved it but did not appear. Shall repost it here…
The illusive nature of bhūta as mentioned by Lal in his post made me think further on the Temperature-born materiality (utuja-rūpa).
It is said that all inanimate materiality is born of and maintained by temperature, which contains of the fire element (tejo-dhātu). The fire element in minerals and metals are very powerful and could produce many generations of materiality. There are also soft objects that have weak fire element that are not long-lasting. When materiality deteriorates, it is because the fire element no longer produces new materiality but instead consumes itself. I think this is the reason why fruits will get over-ripen, electronics will fail, and corpse will rot. At this juncture, we can relate this to the anicca nature of things. The illusive nature of bhūta is also of anicca nature, which essentially conveys a sense of unpredictability. The above examples of fruits over-ripening and rotting of a corpse are pretty much predictable. But I am sure we all have encountered things that failed on us in the least expected ways (viparinama nature).
So, if the most fundamental bhūta has this illusive, anicca, and viparinama nature, what else can be said for the denser dhātu? It is like saying a car that is made up of constituents that are of anicca nature…can we expect a car not to be of anicca nature? Finally, when one sees anicca, dukkha, or anatta, one would be able to comprehend the transitive relationship with the other 2 characteristics of existence.