Krauss's book is generally clear on the physics and well-written, but I was surprised if not shocked at his glib sentence on p. 71 of "Quantum Man" in the midst of talking about the measurement problem
"New-age hucksters aside, consciousness is not the key."
From Wikipedia
"Consciousness and measurement
Wigner designed the experiment to illustrate his belief that consciousness is necessary to the quantum mechanical measurement process. If a material device is substituted for the conscious friend, the linearity of the wave function implies that the state of the system is in a linear sum of possible states. It is simply a larger indeterminate system.
However, a conscious observer (according to his reasoning) must be in either one state or the other, hence conscious observations are different, hence consciousness is not material. Wigner discusses this scenario in "Remarks on the mind-body question", one in his collection of essays, Symmetries and Reflections, 1967. The idea has become known as theconsciousness causes collapse interpretation.  Wikipedia
von Neumann/Wigner interpretation: consciousness causes the collapse
Main article: Quantum mind/body problem
In his treatise The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, John von Neumann deeply analyzed the so-called measurement problem. He concluded that the entire physical universe could be made subject to the Schrödinger equation (the universal wave function). Since something "outside the calculation" was needed to collapse the wave function, von Neumann concluded that the collapse was caused by the consciousness of the experimenter.[22] This point of view was later more prominently expanded on by Eugene Wigner, but remains a view held by very few physicists.[23] Wikipedia
The Problem of Consciousness - Roger Penrose - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFbrnFzUc0U

7 min - Nov 12, 2008 - Uploaded by AcceleratorPlus
Some of Stapp's work concerns the implications of quantum mechanics for consciousness.
Stapp is one of those[who?] who favours the idea that quantum waves collapse only when they interact with consciousness. He argues that quantum waves collapse when intelligent brains select one among the alternative quantum possibilities as a basis for future action.[2] His theory of how mind may interact with matter via quantum processes in the brain differs from that of Penrose and Hameroff. While the latter postulates quantum computing in the microtubules in brain neurons, Stapp postulates more global collapse via his 'mind like' wave-function collapse that exploits certain aspects of the quantum Zeno effect within the synapses to explain attention. His views are spelled out most clearly in his book, Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer [3]