Who said the parts of the Universe had to be non-sentient to make up the
whole "being"?

I look on the existence of us and any other intelligent life forms like the
extra "brain" certain very large dinosaurs needed to handle their immense
bodies, since the actual brain in their skulls tended to be on the tiny side.

As our Milky Way and so many other galaxies are so vast, there would
have to be more than one "mind".

All this does not necessarily add up to an actual cosmic being, but many
ETI working together could be like the Internet.

The whole idea of the article is to find a way to make science and personal
philosophies work together, rather than become even more fractured than
they are now. The people in the article recognize that we are in need of
"feeling" and "connecting" to the ideas of evolution as well as knowing them
scientifically. A few metaphors don't hurt, either.