Exploring Life's Origins: A Non-Scientist's Hypothesis

I'm fascinated by astrobiology, and I've been reading a lot about the origin of life. It led me to this thought experiment: Is reproduction truly fundamental to life? My hypothesis, the Exponential Complexity Hypothesis, suggests it might not be.

The basic idea is that metabolic processes are informationally much simpler than reproductive ones, making non-reproductive life potentially far more common.

I've put my thoughts together in this Medium post

I'm not a scientist, so I'm really curious to hear what people with expertise think. Any corrections or insights are greatly appreciated!