[extropy-chat] effing snow in a simulated universe

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of gts
...
> > Here's where I disagree. The snow does not look white...
> 
> Of course snow looks white! We can disagree about our scientific theories
> about the way frozen H2O molecules act in sunlight... -gts


Please, effing qualia-ists, help me understand something that
has driven me crazier for years.  That snow is white is
interesting, that frozen H2O molecules interact with light
in the way that they do is interesting.  But why is it that
snowflakes seem to have this pi/3 symmetry?  Check out these
really cool photos:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/sn
owcrystals/class/013002-a007.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomi
c/snowcrystals/class/class.htm&h=570&w=694&sz=38&tbnid=5lDaJyb--MUJ:&tbnh=11
2&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsnowflakes%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D&oi=imagesr&start=
3

SnowCrystals.com {8^D Who woulda thought?  Don't you love 
the web?

Nowthen, when a snowflake forms, there must be H20 molecules
in the air that come together in a certain way, perhaps they
start at some point and radiate.  That the radial branches 
should be pi/3 radians makes sense I suppose, but then if
the branches then grow outward, how do they all know to do
kinda the same thing?  Why aren't all the branches different?  It
is almost like the molecules know what the other molecules are
doing somehow, the ones that are on the other five branches, and
that somehow causes them all to do almost the same thing
six times simultaneously.  How can that be?

Isn't that evidence we are living in some kind of a simulation?

spike