Precise clocks don't care about your sentience or lack thereof. They still measure the gravity and speed-induced time dilation that is entirely missing in quantum mechanics. Relativity is a physical phenomenon that does not require sentience to operate, and time is part of that physical phenomenon.

Nope. The universe 'notices', by reacting in exactly the way you'd expect if relativity was happening.

That last bit - "...we can't even know.." is sophistry.

There is nothing sophistic about this argument. It's pretty obvious.

This is why some people argue that we might be living in a simulation. Because we don't have direct (not mediated by our senses) access to the underlying reality.

True about everything, including relativity. Can't have the argument without assuming it.

The fact is, the universe operates consistent with Relativity.

Clocks appear to tick because we are locked in a series of moments. The clock exists at all times it has or will show.

But how does this solve for relativistic time dilation?

My conjecture that consciousness is made of events is an attempt to explain why we see ‘the problem of time’. There are more widely accepted concepts around the subject, like the idea that all moments in time exists equally, not just now. Now is a slice through the cosmos that really exists. I have had thoughts about how relativistic effects work with that, but I honestly think I went far enough. I leave that to others to think about or scoff at.

Even if it is an ordered series of events, why does it appear to have a direction to the ordering?

The direction is purely philosophical. Things are changing from one state to the other. Even if it was backwards, you'd still convince yourself that it is the forward way. Things simply change.

Causality, I guess would be my answer there.

But in your view of time, what is causality? Can it even exist?

Are there distinct events in the real world or we simply draw the lines arbitrarily simply for the sake of practicality? The whole existence could be the light of a match, experienced in an immensely detailed spacetime scale.