[soperj]

> To paraphrase, it would take an enormous amount of prior trust and respect before I even humour someone trying me to convince me the sky is green with a straight face.

But people regularly say the sky is blue, and it's clear as day that it's not when the earth has turned and your side isn't facing the sun.

[bluGill]

The sky is still blue, the lack of light means you cannot tell, but the color is still there.

[digging]

I don't think that's a statement that most would agree with. What is the sky? Sure the atmosphere can be called blue, but the sky is what's visually above the earth. At night, that's black space. The atmosphere is mostly transparent at night.

[stouset]

The sky isn’t inherently blue. It’s essentially colorless.

Only due to Rayleigh scattering do we perceive it as blue, but that’s not due to the absorption and reflection of different wavelengths we associate with innate color. Note that the color changes depending on the angle of the sun, even to the point that it’s purple and red at a few times during the day.

[quonn]

Perhaps, only because the sky is blue we perceive blue as blue. If the sky were red we would perhaps perceive all red like we do blue.

Our perception of the important colors (sky blue, ocean blue, vegetation green, …) probably evolved along with our physical needs.

[soperj]

no... the sky is clear, and it's the refraction of light through the atmosphere that's confusing you.

[bluGill]

As someone who would die without an atmosphere the distinction is meaningless.

[soperj]

you're going to die regardless. The sky still isn't blue, which is quite obvious at night, or during sunsets and sunrise.