But didn't I propose how it makes sense in the second paragraph? No, it doesn't make "me" the universe as a whole, that would be a waste of words. Nonetheless, how can I be anything less? This sounds like pseudo-philosophical spiritualist woo to you, I see that... but your objection was purely semantical. _angel also makes an interesting explanation.

Concepts like "I" and "free will" emerged in our collective subjective paradigm, because that's the only way we can function. The question here is: are we going to make these concepts more than they are? You certainly seem to want to. To me they are done for thanks to science; neither souls nor freedom exist in any meaningful way objectively, they are illusions... and yet we implicitly give them importance by evading their explanation.

The only definition of "I" you accept is "I", which as I said, I'm compelled to follow for the sake of practicality. This convention doesn't include any effort to explain the relationship to everything else we experience to exist "out there". It is a fact that the human body is made from atoms from stars. This fact is trivial next to the fact that all events are made possible by physical laws we see as defining the universe. Including the most important one, which is my consciousness.

Seriously now, where does the universe end and I begin. You said in your latter comment that "only humans are capable of experience, not the universe". Are you saying that humans are some type of strongly emergent entity in the universe? That's one idea. I claim humans are temporally, spatially, materially and experientially reducible to what we call the universe. Sadly the matter is down to belief, since we have no data or tools to determine how phenomenological experience, qualia, consciousness and other such nonsense arises and what's its nature. Woe is me, now I am dogmatic as well (TIL the universe is dogmatic).