Joe - "Maybe things work together in a rational manner simply because otherwise, they would cease to function."

Don't want to get into nitpicking language, but I think you may have the cart before the horse. Seems to me that rational thought and logic are methods of thinking that can help us understand how or why 'things' happen and to predict or understand the interaction among different 'things.'   

Things do cease to function. Using logic or reason is/are tools for understanding the processes involved, but are not the processes.