“How to Understand Ultimate Reality – Order, Energy and God” was written by E. W. “Buck” Lawrimore, a lifelong professional writer, editor, photographer and web developer. Buck majored in philosophy and psychology at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C. After serving as a reporter/editor for The Charlotte Observer, he returned to the college to serve as Director of News & Photography.
Because of that role he was asked by students to teach a course on Photography as Art. It soon became apparent that the images which student photographers thought were in their photographs were often perceived quite differently by other students in the class. This led to the question, “What is a photograph?”
After extensive research and thought, Buck came to the conclusion that a photograph is essentially a pattern – spots and shapes, light and dark – which the brain through pattern perception perceives as wholes. Patterns are everywhere in the world. The only thing our brains can perceive are patterns. The brain is a pattern-recognition organ.
Some time passed with this understanding, till one day the question occurred, How are patterns possible? In other words, what is “out there” in the world that we perceive as patterns? Do patterns really exist or are they an illusion of the mind? Is there nothing really out there but matter and energy? If so, does God exist? He is certainly not composed of matter and energy.
So imagine one of the simplest patterns possible – two dots connected by a fine line. On a photograph this pattern would be visible because of silver halide molecules which had been exposed to light and turned dark as a result. Bore into that pattern and what do we find? Molecules and atoms. Well what enables us to see their arrangement as a pattern? The answer is the order of their arrangement. It is order that enables patterns, as well as so-called natural laws, mathematics, all the sciences and arts, language, communication, perception and literally everything else in the universe. This book explains this astonishing fact in detail.
