From a vague memory of something I read about snowflake formation, the mechanism that transmits information from one side of the snowflake to the other is just the fact that snowflakes are very small. Their formation is driven by the atmosphere around them, and the relevant properties of the atmosphere (like temperature) are continuous, so the same on both sides of the snowflake.<p>Similarly, we don&#x27;t believe the cosmic background radiation is the same everywhere because there is currently a massive faster-than-light communication network linking every point in the universe with every other point for purposes of temperature coordination; we believe that it&#x27;s the same everywhere because the universe was very small in the past, like a snowflake.