COOPERATION as a key to life itself.
The RNA World: molecular cooperation at the origins of life.
"this Review summarizes the key logic behind the RNA World and describe some of the most important recent advances that have been made to support and expand this logic.
We also discuss the ways in which molecular cooperation involving RNAs would facilitate the emergence and early evolution of life.
The immediate future
of RNA World research should be a very dynamic one."
https://physics.mcmaster.ca/~higgsp/756/HiggsLehman2014.pdf
"A point that emerges both from theoretical work and from laboratory experiments is that cooperation at the molecular level is essential for the survival of replicating sequences.
A key aim of this Review is to describe the different senses in which cooperation is relevant in the RNA World. We argue that RNA replication must also fit into a broader thermodynamic and biological context if this were to form the basis of life."
here's the crux of the question: how did the sense of "the whole" emerge so that a system could behave as a "being"?
"focusing not on single reactions in isolation but on the collective set of processes that must all occur contemporaneously, systems chemistry can lead to the discovery of ‘multifers’ in which the system as a whole can establish itself through the shared use of common conditions, reactants or products."
perhaps this is why these tiny cells are so crowded.
"RNA-directed catalysis can actually be improved upon compartmentalization95. The mechanism for this seems to be molecular crowding, such that the local con- centration of RNA can be increased, leading to a catalytic enhancement of up to 70-fold. Thus, the mere process of putting RNA into a tiny cell-like structure can confer a selective advantage on a genotype."