Existence

 Nothing does not exist. But if we were to say for the sake of example that nothing exists, nothing would exist for 0 seconds. Consider that there's still the rest of time left and nothing has existed for 0 seconds and cannot exist any further than that. This leaves only one possibility, something MUST exist. Time does not tick until something exists. 

So now that we know that there must be something you have to consider what is the difference between nothing and something? For something to exist you must have awareness of it. If you were describe the attributes of nothing it is pretty much unobservable and without effects. Thus even if there hypothetically was something if it is unobservable and has no effect on anything then really it's nothing. So we also know that you need awareness for something to exist and to begin to have properties.

Reality is already aware at its most basic form we already know that you need to be aware of something, for something to exist, and this awareness could be extremely basic like the zeros and ones of computer code. 0 & 1 are just two numbers and they represent the most basic form of a change in state. 

And at this point, well things have gotten more complex and they also have not. They are just the same thing to a higher degree. Like every number after 1 is just more 1s all Evolution after this point is just a different combination of the most basic elements of existence. Consciousness would be no different. Consciousness would just be the evolution of this most basic universal awareness that has always been. Just like matter is more complicated forms of previous matter, so has awareness evolved into complex consciousness, because that's what being conscious is really, simply being aware.

What "basic" awareness you might ask? It might be difficult to imagine but, the mathematics and rules of the universe must be self-aware in order to work. A collision between two solid objects must be universally aware that two objects collide because otherwise they would phase through each other. However this awareness is not often thought to be "awareness" because it is physically manifested and we see it as a physical collision, but physical reality is just physics made manifest. In putting the same physics in a computer however, you would see realize that the simulation of these physics reveals that there was in fact an awareness needed for these computations to run. However if you were to go inside the simulation, you would not realize that the physics around you are aware of themselves, and you would simply see them as happening based on physical interactions. Our universe is no different.