@ertwro, it really looks like it, isn't it?

For me AL really made it more clear that when it comes down to interaction and selection of pathways, endless processes of repetition and iteration play a big part. I can see, for example, molecules like proteins interacting with each other in this way, triggering chain reactions that could have productive outcomes (and therefore remain in the pool of selected paths, "alive"), or do nothing and become a dead end.

I have to say that I need to read more of Maturana and Varela's work on this; re-reading the books I listed above re-sparked my interest in the topic!