intelligence

Pretty much.

 

So, even if there was nothing. There was still something. And that something was the rules?

 

umm... i dunno. i can't tell you what was before the start, after the end, beyond the edge, etc. are those even valid questions? i dunno.

 

After reading this again I do think you are right, every action has a reaction, I believe that.

Nothing random ever happens, yeah, but that is a little harder for me to grasp. You might do something out of the ordinary just because of the mood you are in, but what caused that mood? Bad day at work, good day at work, wife said no to sex for the last week, good sex last night, or a combination of a lot of things.
The harder part is why do you suddenly take a different route home one day?

 

and more importantly, every action IS a reaction to a previous action (reaction).

a combination of ALL things, really. your whole life led up to the very instant you decided to make a left instead of a right. in fact, the whole universe -- billions of years of history -- is at work. your decision to go left will affect the course of human history.

 

This is way too close for predestination for me.

 

But are reasons necessarily always causes?

 

i don't like the term predestination because it implies a goal that you're headed towards. which, i suppose is one way of looking at things, but the goal is not the reason for being. one's destiny is more a side effect of existance.

 

What about studies that suggest the mind or conciousness exists outside of the physical bounds of the brain?

 

well, i think you're getting into some language ambiguities here.

what a person might observe as a reason for doing something might not be the actual cause, but that doesn't mean there isn't one.

i really don't see how one could believe in a purely physical universe (one ruled by natural laws) and not eventually come to the conclusion that the universe is deterministic... unless there's something beyond the physical realm somewhere (a soul, perhaps) or if there's some thing somewhere that can actually be random (quantum physics has hinted at this possibility, but i don't believe it's conclusively been proven).