I don't see self-replication as being the hard part. Once you have enough complex chemistry going on, self-replicating processes will appear spontaneously like

I don't see self-replication as being the hard part. Once you have enough complex chemistry going on, self-replicating processes will appear spontaneously like contagious diseases. I'm thinking of, e.g., prions, which self-replicate, but they are not life -- they're just screwed-up proteins that happen to screw up other proteins in exactly the same way they themselves are screwed up, thus making more of themselves. There are also plasmids, which don't really resemble anything like life, yet they self-replicate. Self-replicating things pop up randomly in strange places and they are amplified through positive feedback. The hard part seems to be getting to the point where the chemistry is so complex that self-replicating things are even possible.