I have come to the conclusion that any successful form of life or autonomous organization, whether biological or non-biological, must in some way follow the following fundamental cycle:
E → C → M → S → Ω
where E is an expected or desired state, C is conflict arising from the difference between the expected and actual state, M is variability — the generation of possible ways to resolve the conflict, S is selection, and Ω is the resulting possibility space.
I’m not claiming that this is the only possible formulation, but I believe this cycle may describe a basic mechanism underlying the persistence and development of successful self-organizing systems.
If this is of interest to you, I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts. You may also want to take a look at my work on the same platform:
There may be some interesting points of convergence between your work and mine.