> Instead, he argues that consciousness is the foundational reality, while spacetime acts merely as a virtual reality headset that renders objects only when we perceive them

This is called Idealism. It's a very very old idea, and a totally unsatisfying one.

> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idealism/

It is, I think, wholly unconvincing. It is at root solipsistic, and far beyond any notion of proof or validation. Saying that "consciousness is the fundamental thing" (and ignoring that there are perfectly mundane explanations for consciousness) reduces all of physics to black-box metaphysics.