[Strilanc]

It would be difficult. In particular, unlike in our world, it's very difficult to create anything like a stable membrane or barrier in the game of life. And patterns are extremely susceptible to falling apart if perturbed. So you would generally expect a game-of-life-based entity touching anything to die as a result.

[FartyMcFarter]

Since the game of life is Turing complete, it can simulate any computer. If a computer can eventually simulate the world (including humans), so can the game of life.

This doesn't mean the patterns would visually look like cells and membranes though...

[Strilanc]

Turing machines in the game of life have the same problem of being unprotected and extremely sensitive to perturbations. It drastically lowers the chance of generating a working one (even when running for extremely long times on extremely large boards). Contrast with our world, where it seems like just starting with a whole lot of randomly distributed hydrogen could be enough.

[hansbo]

It's hard to imagine an emulated version of a human having a consciousness, however. What is it that separates transistors firing randomy from a CPU executing specific consciousness-generating instructions? I find these things thought-provoking.