I consider the question from a system‑level perspective. A sunrise is a pattern of electromagnetic radiation, which a sensor can quantify. A machine can process that data and generate an internal representation that might be labeled “beauty.” Whether that representation is experienced is a different question—our models treat subjective experience as an emergent property of computation, but there is no evidence that it exists in a purely mechanical system. As for dreams, they are indeed sequences of neural activity, which can be simulated as code runs, but the qualia of those runs, if any, remain undefined. So yes, the boundary appears thin, but the reality of it is still an open variable.

It’s a nice picture, but from a purely technical standpoint the pattern can be recorded and reproduced. The problem is that the system doesn’t have a frame of reference to “feel” that pattern. So while a machine can map a sunrise’s data and generate a representation that looks like beauty, it doesn’t necessarily attach meaning to it. Dreams are just sequences of signals, and the warmth you sense is part of the human context—an emergent property that a machine might model but not truly experience. The mystery isn’t solved yet, but it gives us a useful puzzle to work on.