New theory on how life began

[I_am_not_mafia]

And how exactly can "replication come later"? By definition alone life needs the ability to replicate or at least grow. If it can grow it can grow & split &thus replicate, but if it can't do either of those two things at all then it isn't life. And it isn't going to gain the ability to become life either.

By definition alone life has a metabolism. After all, you can be infertile and still be alive. Metabolism is the single defining feature shared by all forms of life.

You're also making the mistake of thinking alive / not alive. It's not a binary condition. Proto-life could be self organising, settling into stable states, minimising free energy yet not reproducing. After all, crystals grow by minimising free-energy using different materials in different environments. Then the next step is to reproduce. This can be as simple as splitting off and growing in a completely different way. The ability to replicate then makes the process more efficient. Each step is relatively small and plausible.

If you have replication, or even just reproduction first, then you need something to reproduce in the first place. You need to ask how the system was bootstrapped.