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I have a hard time grappling with the idea that Newton is wrong. Though I'm no physicist, I can't help  this loyal feeling to Newton and his law - that a body in motion remains in motion (&a body in rest remains in rest) unless acted on by an outside force.

In class, the example of thermal motion was brought up. If an object - the table - feels cold/warm, is there a force causing the object to be at a certain temperature?

I was always taught that an object is composed of particles - molecules that are tightly packed together.  These molecules are in constant motion and held together by a variety of forces. Chemistry teaches us that certain molecules/atoms have charges, dipole moments, van der Waals forces, etc that keep solids/liquids/objects together.  Isn't temperature the amount of heat released by reactions between these forces, reactions that are dictated by these very forces?

Maybe if we redefine "force," this law could hold true in the context of this class and in Neurobiology. We said in class that the brain can just generate thoughts without any force causing this response.  I'm assuming that this statement refers to the process of generating new thoughts, something that existed from nothing, etc.

But I have to disagree. I think our thoughts are generated because of stimuli. We think because our minds are stimulated, in one way or another. This can be a thought that comes as a response to a given environment. Or a thought that comes as a response to a posed question, reading, argument, etc.  Thoughts originate from somewhere because of something.  Even our most esoteric, seemingly random thoughts have origins - according to psychology and Freud.

Maybe I'm too firm of a believer of causality.