There is a continuum here. We believe that the same fundamental rules of nature (life) apply and that if we were clever enough, we could explain the first (cognition) from the rules of the last (physics). But we aren’t–at least yet. And so there is a gap which is filled by humans in a number of ways that may be comforting if not scientific.
And yet, there is the question of emergence, in which order arises from complexity in ways that may be rule-based locally, but not globally. Seizures and hurricanes are relatively simple examples of such emergence, but learning and memory may fall into that category also.
And so, while there are definitely quarks which obey rules, the phenomenon of Shakespeare’s plays may not be deduced from quark-laws. In fact, at an intuitive level, I very much doubt it. But my intuition is not science and therefore we may in the end be able to recreate the Bard from first principles. And if so, there goes free will.
Discoverers and Discoveries 