I've had this same idea myself, that the universe had to create consciousness so that it could define its parameters, after all, if the act of observation affects the observed event, and if the temporal or spatial relationship of the observer and event affect the nature of the observation, then perhaps Sagan's idea that we are the universe contemplating itself and bringing itself into existence is not too far off. You have to postulate some mechanism so that creatures evolved now can somehow affect events occuring during the Big Bang, but who knows? We know for sure the universe is a very strange place, we can't even rule out time travel.

This vaguely suggests some ways to actually test this...since modern physics is just now starting to discover the laws of physics, and presumably they are known incompletely and probably incorrectly. New laws of physics as they are discovered must therefore reflect an understanding of nature which we do not have at the time of their introduction, but which we will have in the future. When we believed in a geocentric astronomy, did the universe work differently than it does now? The scientists of the past certainly believed so. Suppose we find extraterrestrial intelligences with a more complete understanding of physics, will we suddenly start seeing evidences of their universe which were hidden from us until we met them?

This all somehow sounds too much like Rupert Sheldrake's "morphological fields" for my liking, but it is fun to speculate about. I do suspect there is some kind of relationship between consciousness and the physical universe, too many physical concepts are expressed in perceptual and psychological terms: observation, information, chaos, uncertainty, entropy (increased disorder), communication. And the fact that mathematics is such an effective tool at revealing and explaining physical relationships has always amazed me. How could the human brain have known all those things ahead of time? How could the universe realize it would need differential equations to be discovered so it would make sense?

One thing is for sure, the role of the theologian and philosopher is now usurped by the particle physiscist and the cosmologist. Maybe I'm exhibiting hubris, but I'm convinced we finally have the conceptual and intellectual tools we need to make sense of the Universe.