I suscribe to most of your takes on the topic. I still am more of a pessimistic and I am of the opinion that intelligent life in the universe is very rare. I do think that we are probably the only civilization in the region of galaxies surrounding the milky way. And intelligent life doesn´t evolve to a point where the subjects figure out the origin of intelligence and consciousnesses. I think explaining consciousness is as trying to explain the origin of the universe, impossible.