It's a question I've been thinking a lot about.
I know the real answer is "its very very very complicated and we dont even know", but I find it interesting.
Take a cell for instance to make it easier. Proteins and DNA are not "alive". The organelles in a Cell are just about as "dead" as anything in your bedroom, yet they all make up a cell which manages to perform tasks that we consider life. Once you conglomerate trillions of these cells, they communicate with each other to make angry teenagers, honey badgers, hambones, trees, weed leaves, and angry single mothers who found mentioned weed leaves.
But all of our basic parts don't contain life. They're just carrying out the same chemical reactions over and over without actual choice. Even between people, the cells are more or less the same sans the DNA we carry. How do the cells which we have define their limits based on a huge string of atoms, to make my nose just long enough.
Since everything in itself is a chain reaction of chemical reactions, does that mean the future is pre-determined by the reactions going on in your wang cells right now? Is there actually a free will because of that?
It's all very interesting. I want to hear your opinions.