When I say neuronal activity I may be less than exactly correct. There are probably other brain things involved beyond just neurons. That this sort of activity can be said to be real is on the same order as the movement of a flock of birds or a wave on the water can be said to be real. It is process, and process is a sort of reality.
What is "out there" in the world is not what we think, but it correlates with what we think. We learn of it through our senses, and our senses are processed in our brain in all sorts of ways to help us handle the influx of data. Sometimes it even lies, as attested by optical illusions.
Consider, for example, the color something is. You look at a banana tree (as I'm doing right now outside my window) and you see mostly green. Is that tree green? Actually quite the opposite -- what you see are the colors (wavelengths) the leaf rejects. Those it absorbs are the other wavelengths, so it doesn't look white.
The real mystery (often by neurologists and others referred to as the "deep problem") is how these things the brain produces become our experiences. They use the word "qualia" to describe the specific different experiences we experience. Note the word "experience." The word should convey something more than just things that are there, but things that we incorporate.
Maybe this will help: there are two closely related meaning to the word "color." One is the experience or qualia of the color, the other is the electromagnetic photons with the specific energy of the color. One is psychological, the other physical.
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