It is what it claims to be if you keep in mind that it's based on the Smoothlife extension[0] of Conway's Game Of Life. Words can have more than one definition.
The abstract of the paper linked in the readme[1] makes it pretty clear that the usage of the word "life" should be interpreted as a reference to cellular automata:
> A new system of artificial life called Lenia (from Latin lenis “smooth”), a two-dimensional cellular automaton with continuous spacetime state and generalized local rule, is reported. Computer simulations show that Lenia supports a great diversity of complex autonomous patterns or “life forms” bearing resemblance to real-world microscopic organisms. More than 400 species in 18 families have been identified, many discovered via interactive evolutionary computation. They differ from other cellular automata patterns in being geometric, metameric, fuzzy, resilient, adaptive and rule generic.
The abstract of the paper linked in the readme[1] makes it pretty clear that the usage of the word "life" should be interpreted as a reference to cellular automata:
> A new system of artificial life called Lenia (from Latin lenis “smooth”), a two-dimensional cellular automaton with continuous spacetime state and generalized local rule, is reported. Computer simulations show that Lenia supports a great diversity of complex autonomous patterns or “life forms” bearing resemblance to real-world microscopic organisms. More than 400 species in 18 families have been identified, many discovered via interactive evolutionary computation. They differ from other cellular automata patterns in being geometric, metameric, fuzzy, resilient, adaptive and rule generic.
[0] https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/OCA:SmoothLife
[1] https://www.complex-systems.com/abstracts/v28_i03_a01/