Sadly, it is a serious argument. You will notice, though, that: "the universe does not need time to exist", so he is trying to leave an escape from the accusation that he is saying the universe came into existence with the first consciousness.
However take a tree it has growth rings which infer time passage and they exist with or without a consciousness. There will be millions of such things on non conscious objects.
So even if you claim time it is not needed without a consciousness it is clear it does exist without it!
Crackpots do the same with QM and give the observer a special role, only you can use the background radiation as an observer and they end up grasping at the same straws.
So it's clear such ideas are philosophy because we have data outside the consciousness exists condition. In science you want to cover all known conditions, not just the ones which involve "consciousness exists".
If we used the above you could argue why study black holes or the universe light years away, you or my consciousness is never going to get there in our lifetime. The reverse argument for science is those things may shed light on here and now physics and hence the same argument runs for time.
