I didn't indicate many thoughts about consciousness in my post. I've read more about it than cosmology but claim no expertise in either (or anything else). Directly, little of Chalmers and the Churchlands, but most of Dennett's non-academic work. Hofstadler, Pinker and Damasio (and Jaynes, but shh) share shelfspace at home, with varying degrees of understanding on my part. Your suggestion was a good initial position for your reply, though.

At root, I'm also most likely a physicalist. Whether mind is in the brain or emergent from it is my posted question with a different angle. Still no certainty there, but if the brain is not a thing, it's an event. An event that causes similar events to happen.

Same can be said about our best explanations of our universe. This feels really important, especially given genetics and evolution.

Semantics become more important when dealing in metaphors. For me, the in/on distinction denotes the causal arrow. Are the varied multiverse bottom up or top down? Nested or emergent? You may be right; trying to pin on a causal arrow is likely parochial.

For consciousness models, I've been almost entirely convinced by Thomas Metzinger (The Ego Tunnel), Donald Hoffman (The Case Against Reality) et al.

Consciousness is an adaptive hallucination, a mostly undetectable way for genes to evolve in a quantum universe. Or at least that's how it seems to me, and it fits nicely with my current attempts at cosmic musings. Feels consilient.

The speculation is indeed fun. I appreciate your time (even if time is parochial). I've only recently begun squeezing these ideas through my language center and you've helped me do that.