Conscious is a term in relation to the observer, not some medical or religious text. The conscious observer is the one that willfully undergoes an interaction with the object in a state of flux. You don't seem to get that the observer is the person who sees the state collapse (or a defined state form). If you're some crazy that wants to say only you are conscious because you are reading text on a screen- by all means.
It's not that nothing existed... it is not knowledge we can attain. If you feel a grain of sand is trying to attain the knowledge- sandman's your observer. But to someone not there to see sandman, they still have no idea what state the object is in. All these titles are roles, not descriptions for a casting call. Something there is an observer, or there is none- it's not about picking out of your head what can and cannot be an observer.
Choose a conscious observer; An old guy named Gandy, who has a notebook, and a pipe, and wears a magician hat. He's playing the role of conscious observer tonight. So if I go screwing around with a particle in a quantum state... how's Gandy to know? If he were to do tests on it, he himself would cause the state to collapse- so he would never establish I messed with it- he doesn't know about me. So to me, I am a conscious observer, to an imaginary absolute reference frame; I collapsed the state. But to poor old Gandy, he's still out in the park smoking and hypothesizing ways to test it without collapsing things, when 'the universe', shall we say (the imaginary absolute frame) knows I made the state collapse. You designate the observer how you'd like. It's not some quantum particle walks into the bar and someone steps forward as the observer. It is a role that is designated, and not something that should have effort expended on analysis that choice, as long as it is sound (alice, bob). Save the brain cells for the thing with the name 'quantum' in it's name.