I'll answer you in 2 parts: 1) What I did, 2) What more would need to be done. Further, understand this was a long journey - not just days or weeks, so it's difficult to capture every facet in just a few words.
1) What I did.
I created a list of axioms for biology. I couldn't find such a list anywhere, or at least not a consistent list, so I created my own. Reason: I knew I couldn't take on all of biology at once, so I wanted to focus on just a small part. The part I chose to focus on was self-organization and replication.
I educated myself on the mathematical models used for biology. Again, there wasn't anything standard - models varied widely. I chose to use TAM (Tile Assembly Method). I programmed a TAM model that could self-organize and replicate.
I ran simulations under various conditions. I was able to create systems that demonstrated descent with modification - one commonly accepted feature of evolution. One generation would mutate and pass on mutated traits to the next generation. However, under other conditions, descent with modification stopped and was replaced with emergence. New organisms would emerge directly due to transfers. In other words, in one case, through a succession of generations, the simulation produced a succession of modified descendants: A -> B -> C -> D -> E. In the other case, organisms emerged without respect to generation: A -> B, A -> C -> B, A -> D, A -> E -> A ... all kinds of combinations.
But I knew that wasn't good enough. The idea would need actual lab tests. My first thought was DNA computing. Of course DNA computing is meant to be an actual computer, not an organism. However, if the fundamental chemical building blocks of life could replicate my simulations, it would show the possibility of a biological system behaving similarly to my simulations. It would circumvent the ethics issues involved in doing such an experiment on actual life, with the main difference being a matter of complexity and boundary conditions.
If it did succeed, it would give indications of the potential, of what to look for in natural settings, and open discussions of what could possibly be done with something like bacteria or viruses in a lab.
2) What needs to be done
But the experiment never happened. I approached several journals, who confirmed that I needed lab experiments to accompany the simulations before they would publish. I approached several universities, offering to fund an experiment. They said the amount of funding I offered was only sufficient for an undergrad project, and that what I was proposing was beyond an undergrad. They declined to contribute any funding of their own, but suggested I seek to join a university research team to pursue the funding myself. I don't qualify, because I don't have a degree in biology - two master's degrees (engineering & history), but not biology. So, my only recourse was to seek a degree in biology - not a smart move for a mid-career engineer with a family.
In the end, then, it comes back to what I stated in one of my early posts. What would motivate me to pursue this further? Nothing. It remains a hypothesis. Even moreso, as I also indicated earlier, I'm less concerned with the idea being rejected or falsified than I am with the flippant shrug and the remark, "Meh. What you're describing is just another mechanism of evolution." Why? Because I would consider such a reaction either disingenuous or a failure to appreciate what I'm saying ... attitudes that seem in abundance here.
