It seems obvious that if replication of elementary particles appears that everything else will be an emerging property given enough time. And if you look at atoms and math there're definite parallels that once atoms can interconnect stronger than everything else (considering the 3d world) and something like Penrose's tiles where you get repeating interconnecting structures that more higher level structures would be possible. And with energy connected to the particles momentum and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle you get fluctuations in the structures that allow for both new structures and enforcing of the construction rules. You also have clear levels between forces that work on different levels that create boundaries to the structures. 3 spacial dimensions give additional directions of interactions between structures. And voila, given conditions, there's a place for emerging properties. Whether it was RNA who knows. It does seem that the search becomes way murkier toward going into the actual mechanism but the ingredients seem to be in place
