An Essay:Equivalent Exchange is The Supreme Law of The World

This is an essay I wrote for the purpose of expending some spare time from my hands. Without realising it, I now know that the “Law of Equivalent Exchange” is omnipresent in the world. The actual name comes from a fictional Japanese manga known as Fullmetal Alchemist, illustrated and written by Arakawa Hiromu (荒川弘). It is a law obeyed by all “Alchemists” in the series, that is they can only change matter into other forms, not create or destroy it. As such, they cannot create living humans, attempts to do so are impossible because human life is immeasurable in value. The law, however, exists in our world, but it is called by different names and is not universally applied because of human ignorance, we only apply what we can observe quantitatively in science, and we ignore the obvious qualitative results which cannot be expressed as a specific quantity. I am going to show how we can apply the law to our lives and therefore support and oppose certain phenomena in the world.

First however, I will support the existence of such a law. The law can be expressed by Newton’s third law, or Lavoisier’s law of conservation of mass. In both laws, it is stated different aspects of the same concept: That everything in the world cannot violate the law of equivalent exchange and therefore the amount of energy in the world is finite and static, it doesn’t change in quantity, ever. Newton’s third law states that every force in a force pair is equal. When a person stands on the ground or sits in a chair, the force of gravity and the normal force caused by contact of the object with the ground are directly opposed by the same magnitude. If the forces are not constant, that person will accelerate in the direction of the greater force as long as it is applied. To put it simply, if the surface the person was standing on somehow applied a greater force than gravity, that person would lift off the ground and accelerate until the force was no longer applied to that person. This satisfies equivalent exchange, both forces are kept equivalent, but opposite, to each other. Similarly, the law of conservation of mass states matter and energy both can neither be created nor destroyed, they will always exist in one form or another and are, by definition, in a finite amount. Thus, the law has a basis for existing.

I will now use the law to oppose the existence of a deity such as described in the Christian Bible. With the creation of each human, that hypothetical life force would have to come from somewhere, and, assuming it comes from God, it would mean that God would itself depend on life force, and thus could not exist while supporting more than six billion people currently living, not to mention the countless who have already died. Supporters and followers of religions such as and similar to Christianity can contest that life force returns to God, however, that doesn’t account for neither God’s own usage of life force, nor the exponential number of people needed to be supported by that donation of life force. Also, that line of thinking begs the question: What’s the purpose of life force in the first place if we constantly leak it, only for it to be returned to God? It’s recursive reasoning, and therefore a fallacy on their end. Other ways that a Christian God cannot exist are: In order for such a god to exist, the law of equivalent exchange must be obeyed. Consider that many of the “miracles” described, such as parting of the Red Sea (Something that not all Christians believe, but many do.) and the resurrection violate the law of equivalent exchange. With the parting of the Red Sea, God would have had to hold back millions of litres of water on both sides of the sea to allow passage, physically the force necessary would have to come from somewhere: So what method would an invisible God have used? In order to hold the water it would’ve required many times the holding power of the Hoover Dam, and by what method, that doesn’t violate the Law of Equivalent exchange, would it be accomplished? In essence however, nothing I or anyone else says will make a theist an atheist.

Finally, the main consensus of this essay that I’d like readers to take away from is this: Life may seem unfair at times, but even your life follows the law of equivalent exchange. This is represented in Buddhism and Hinduism as “Karma”. In other words, a person has a few options when life hands them lemons: 1.“Make lemonade” or simply make the best of the worst situation thats been presented. 2.“Pray to turn lemons into fish” Whenever someone offsets their own responsibility to a higher power, such as a god or ancestor or spirit. 3. “Die of hunger and thirst by giving up entirely” Basically, to lose all hope and give up on their life. In an analysis of each option, it seems option two will eventually turn to option one or three. Therefore, giving their responsibility up to a higher power will not balance the law of equivalent exchange, it will only prolong their suffering. Likewise, option three is the permanent solution to a temporary issue, that person will die when they could have put up a fight to survive. Only option one will eventually balance the law of equivalent exchange. By living through the negative period of your life, it will eventually balance into a period of prosperity. Until it has been accepted, nobody will be able to move past their cycles of positive and negative.

By people accepting the outcomes of their actions, they gain control of their fates. If they’re determined, anyone can end the cycle and balance their life indefinitely. But I, of all people, know how hard it is to accept a fact of life that may be painful. The countless unrequited loves I have had, the social isolation I experienced, these are facts that I cannot change. All I can do as a person is accept the law of equivalent exchange and take control of my own life, and my own exchanges. Sadly, I know countless people will deny my theory as unscientific, unquantitative and unsupported. However, if my theory does prove correct, those who can accept this will find it does exist to some extent. I can already say that the law exists in physics, so what is not to say it cannot exist elsewhere?