"we may each just be the eyes of the universe peering back upon itself."

Although that sounds inspirational, I'm not sure how useful it really is, or whether it's even true.

Rather, consciousness might just be a byproduct of the functioning of the brain. It might not even be necessary. It might just be a strange evolutionary mutation that has no particular evolutionary drawback, so we never lost it.

For example, self-driving vehicles show us that it's possible to have things react and respond appropriately to the environment without conscious being part of it. And even with humans, once a person has learned to drive, most of the time the control of the car happens automatically through reflexes.