[spuz]

Interestingly this is a question I've had for a while. Night brings potentially deadly cold, predators, a drastic limit in vision so why do we find the sunset and night sky beautiful. Why do we stop and watch the sun set - something that happens every day - rather than prepare for the food and warmth we need to survive the night?

[TeMPOraL]

Maybe it's that we only pause to observe them and realize they're beautiful, when we're feeling safe enough?

"Beautiful sunset" evokes being on a calm sea shore with a loved one, feeling safe. It does not evoke being on a farm and looking up while doing chores and wishing they'd be over already. It does not evoke being stranded on an island, half-starved to death.

[amelius]

We think it's beautiful because it's like a background that we don't have to think about. If that background were hostile, we'd have to think and we would not think it looks beautiful.

[delusional]

You're entering the domain of philosophy. There's a concept of "the sublime" that's been richly explored in literature. If you find the subject interesting, I'd recommend you starting with Immanuel Kant.

[ben_w]

My guess is that your framing presumes the opposite of the evolutionary reality. I think this time of day probably wasn't a big risk for us, that we were often the hunters and not just the hunted, and that the sense of beauty comes from — as the previous poster suggests — us having evolved to find it so.

That said, I'm discovering from living very close to a lake for the last year that mosquitos are a right pain around sunset…