See, the autocataytic set hypothesis, is based on lab experiments, which show that small protein peptide molecules, in a increasingly complex 'soup', undergo a spontaneous phase transition, which creates self catalysing, auto-catalytic sets. This phase transition is dependent on the ratio of uncatalysed reactions in the soup, to polymers of a given length. At the moment, (2018), this has been demonstrated in a set of 16 ribosymes.
The autocatalytic
hypothesis, (emboldenment for
@Mountainmike only), then arises by applying this demonstrated phenomenon to the question of the origins of template based replication (ie: life's genetic code).
Evolution then takes over, once some random event changes any given peptide in a peptide autocatytic set (or cluster).
Stuart Kauffman (its proposer) tries to simplify this, with his nursery rhyme-style explanation about peptides he names 'Patrick, Gus', (etc) co-existing in a calm lagoon, billions of years ago, on the coast of Western Australia. Those peptide characters then become the first sessile feeder and the first predator.
See his 30 minute, highly condensed (and therefore, not so easy to follow), Youtube:
The Emergence and Evolution of Life: Stuart Kauffman .. all the published references, supporting his hypothesis, are shown in his projected slides (and in his words).
You might not believe his hypothesis .. (that's optional and quite irrelevant). It is however, deeply rooted in empirical lab testing results and well established information theory, and is actively being pursued as part of research into the field of molecular reproduction. Like it or not: they have shown that its possible.