There Is No Such Thing As "Human", As It's All Subatomic Particles.

We need to go over what language is and what words are there for. A word is a sound we use to describe a set of ideas and objects in the world. A society can choose whatever sounds it wants, or define what collection of objects these sounds represent, but the important thing is that a consensus is reached. Without consensus we are in a tower of babylon situation. So when you say there is no such thing as "human" you seem to be saying that humans, the physical things represented by the word "human", do not exist. The title is very poorly worded. The justification is that we are just subatomic particles anyway, and your constant attempts to relate human things to things in nature indicates to me you are claiming that humans are not distinct. However we are distinct. Our human collections of particles have distinct traits from other collection. The fact that we are made out of the same general stuff as the rest of the universe doesn't mean our stuff can't be arranged differently making us unique and distinct. Counter-Argument 1: No, because you're either particles - or still particles, just they are called "human" for whatever distinctive purpose there is to distinguish one thing from another - to distinguish something is not to define something, Actually, to distinguish something is a way to define it. We make words to represent different distinguishable things to have a linguistic distinguishment between these physically distinguishable things. We make a word for you, a word for me, because you and I are different and we need words to linguistically represent each of us. Since humans are different from other things because we do have unique traits (unique arrangements of particles), it is proper to have a word to represent us, and there is certainly such a thing as human. therefore calling particles human, animal, plant, or whatever does not remove the grand picture behind the notion of which they are still particles beneath the appearance they have given. I agree, we are all still collections of particles. But the human collection is different from the dynamite collection, and the overall structure has different properties. So we are physically distinct. Counter-Argument 2: They don't make us human - they are particles which created something that we call human. Us calling it something does not have any effect on the thing in itself. They do make us human. Since these particles have traits that make humans distinct among ourselves from other groups of particles, they do make us human. We have defined the word human to mean these collections so they are human. Counter-Argument 3: "We" are not; the particles "Are". You are only looking at the parts but not looking at how they work together. Our particles are, and so are we. We are the collection of particles. We have sentience so we have personal identities. We are not just objects. The Universe planned our existence billions of years ago before the birth of stars, by creating photo receptors; they are what allow us to observe this world today. You are assuming the universe is sentient. Provide arguments to support this. Where is the evidence that the universe created photo receptors before the stars formed? Being conscious is merely the water of our bodily system reflecting upon the world via the eyes of this Universe Actually we have no idea how consciousness happens. All we know is that we are. There is no evidence that water has the ability to reflect on anything. There is also no evidence that we are using "the eyes of the universe." What are the "eyes of the universe" anyway? Are you assuming the universe is sentient again? we are experiencing the experiencing Universe; No evidence the universe can experience... we are not experiencing anything more than what the Universe is. It's not "our" experience; it's the Universe's experience, hence why everything that "we" are, was premeditated before the birth of stars. That is just a claim backed with nothing. There is no evidence the universe experiences anything. Being intelligent is still based on observation and analysis - these are not high-grade elements of the brain, hence why tyrants, serial killers and psychopaths are highly analytic. Analysis is a high-grade element. Einstein discovered that space-time can be bent by matter. This analysis by him (the collection of particles that is Einstein) is something not every collection of particles can do. Observation is high-grade and the process of eyes working with the brain is highly complex. The fact that we are conscious of this process and analyze it means we are much more than just a camera. Counter-Counter-Argument 2: They are merely cosmic sponges that soak up already existing information throughout the Universe, then managing that information via an already built-in system of reaction and assessment. There's nothing "human" - it's all particles in the end. You are describing a computer. A computer collects information and uses pre-existing functions to do computations on the data, and take actions depending on the data. The problem is that computers are not sentient and are not actually thinking, they are just following pre-defined physical patterns in their circuits. We however are sentient and can actually experience our thinking, change it, and can even add novel computations to ourselves. We are like sentient computers that can write novel code for ourselves while personally experiencing all this. Such a thing is completely beyond even our best computers. If our thinking and analysis was completely out of our control and is controlled by particles in our brains, then how can we determine what we think and change ourselves? The truth is that either our consciousness is either external to our particles or an emergent property of certain structures in our brain. So we can control ourselves because we are our particles. So yes, thinking happens because of reactions in the brains by physical brain structures. But we are these structures and the emergent sentience from these structures so we are also in control of our thinking. If consciousness is not an emergent property, it either does not exist, or is external. If it is external, my opponent is wrong and we are not just particles. Consciousness does exist and is proven from your personal experience.