The rule doesn’t change. Instead, the pattern changes. In Conway Life you’ve seen “gliders”. Think of these patterns as a much bigger glider pattern and then a machine-learning algo writes more and more capable patterns. So this isn’t self-evolving code; it’s two different halves. One code that looks at, and keeps evolving, the other and it self.
Basically the computer is like “OK my job is to design a hand-written pattern that can make its way through mazes. Oh, they’re all failing. OK, let me evolve myself so that I get better at hand-writing such patterns.”
In real life, there is DNA inside the organisms, and the algorithm (probably better known as “living”) for the organism’s own interaction is the same as their own evolution. That’s not what this is. Instead, the designer is evolving itself. Dying is failing, and dying also changes the algorithm. That’s not how this works. Instead, in this Lenia scenario failure/success judgement is external. (Matthew 25:31-46) And by “dying”, I mean the entire group. Evolution doesn’t only work on an individual level. It works fractally: if you live by screwing over your tribe, the tribe has failed and you with it; if we wreck the planet, we as a planet has failed.)
It’s like if people were hand sculpted by some sorta Pygmalion God and he’d be like “ah man, these scrubs are hanging out the passenger side of their best friend’s ride trying to holla at me” (Genesis 11:1-9) and decides to go do some reps so he’ll get way better at hand sculpting people and then rinse and repeat until he had created some sorta super Galatea that can make its way through an Algernon maze and dodge bullets like Neo.