Matter Of Opinion
Reality, is it always a reflected? — Well, we cannot know any other.
Whether it still exists, whether reality is there, independent of being experienced — that is a matter of opinion and of belief rather than of knowledge.
What is certain is that nothing exists without interacting with others in some way. If it is something, it exerts effects on other things. In these effects it comes into appearance. So it mirrors itself in the other.
We are not used, however, to attributing “knowledge” and “experience” to something other than human. And even this might not have been enough in former times, before it was commonly realized and accepted that all humans are essentially equal.
The essential question here is how we see ourselves (and accordingly the other), whom or what we identify with.