Originally Posted by
zerothehero 
Whether "the things that really matter to us" exist or not ultimately doesn't matter. Our experience is our experience, our emotions our emotions, our thoughts our thoughts, our sensations our sensations...
Although I think it is true to say that our experience does exist. We all start in our knowing from experience and it's therefore reasonable to think that experience can't be eliminated or reduced to a material explanation such as neurons firing in the brain.
So I can never say there aren't any experiences. Sounds, sights, colours and feelings and thoughts, everything in our consciousness which perhaps other people never know about in the same way that we know about them, are I think are features of reality. They are features of the world.
Consciousness is what we are most immediately aware of. The problem is, is there anything else?!