Seems like an application of the ladder of abstraction. [0] That is, abstracting over every possible value of a variable in a system.
In this case we abstract over time in a system of computation. To be more precise the system is a non-deterministic automata, so we abstract over time and all the possible branches too.
Mapping out all state of a non-deterministic automata, you eventually find overlaps of different branches. To Wolfram this is a big revelation since instead of the system getting more complicated you found some simplification, aka. generality.