Life doesn't really learn. It experiments, quite unintentionally, with new versions of itself. They 'evolve'. Most of these experiments fail sooner or later. Some succeed because they happen to have just the right bits and pieces they need to live wherever they happen to be (like the bottom of the sea or in a tree top, for example). The new forms (called species) compete with other life and often the winner takes all. Charles Darwin, who discovered about evolution, called this natural selection.