I think you'd have a hard time finding a scientist in the field that doesn't think that the mind is the result of the brain's action, but in origin of life research, "self-replicating molecules" is not the only game in town.
The two main approaches are "replicator-first" and "metabolism-first", though the replicators seem to do better in the popular press. I did my doctoral work in this field, and I was in the metabolism camp along with many of the major scientists working on the problem.
In a nutshell, "metabolism-first" means that a network of many interacting molecules were changing their local environment, eventually creating various feedback cycles that amplified the effect. Meaningful replication (especially of the RNA/DNA "informational polymer" variety) likely came significantly later, and almost certainly after the metabolic system had already achieved a basic state of homeostasis.
It was likely an evolutionary advancement of the "metabolic system" to use molecules like RNA (if not RNA itself, initially) to establish a more robust homeostasis by encoding information about the system in a more stable form.
I don't think any scientist questions that the brain is integral to the experience of consciousness, but there are quite a few cogent scientists that challenge the mainstream proposition that consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of the brain. It does seem that mainstream scientists feel married to a mechanistic/material/reductionist world view.
The two main approaches are "replicator-first" and "metabolism-first", though the replicators seem to do better in the popular press. I did my doctoral work in this field, and I was in the metabolism camp along with many of the major scientists working on the problem.
In a nutshell, "metabolism-first" means that a network of many interacting molecules were changing their local environment, eventually creating various feedback cycles that amplified the effect. Meaningful replication (especially of the RNA/DNA "informational polymer" variety) likely came significantly later, and almost certainly after the metabolic system had already achieved a basic state of homeostasis.
It was likely an evolutionary advancement of the "metabolic system" to use molecules like RNA (if not RNA itself, initially) to establish a more robust homeostasis by encoding information about the system in a more stable form.