As a computational cognitive neuroscientist, and not a physicist, I think "consciousness" is a word. We should be careful trying to make nouns into science. We can meaningfully ask how the brain computes intermodally (across sensory and action information and the relationships between acitve experience and memory).
I see the neocortical brain as a "predication engine" which can find relationships between things (one predicating another with a computation of consistency with remembered experience). In this, natural language is a perfect window on the neocortical computation ... only man has a communication capability neocortext to neocortex. So it is natural we will have words describing our 'perceived' mental states and processes.
My most recent study is not about consciousness, but lies. I find that much more informative about how people think. And, as Descartes said, "God is Nature, and God does not lie." So there! Read this! (Descartes invented 'cartesian coordinates' ...the basis for the calculus employed in physics).
So, the question of whether the universe is conscious is equivalent to asking whether it has a human brain that lies...answer no.
