In Autopoiesis and Cognition, the seminal text, Maturana and Varela discuss how organisms discern new aspects in a way that is very similar, IMO, to variation theory. There is a paper of von Foersters (very technical) for an idea in which thoughts are grouped tessellations.

I think this is a similar idea to Bateson's "ideas are aggregates of distinctions" and Marton's "complexes of aspects" (I compare these two in my book, chapter 2).