This doctoral thesis is centered around the search for a scientific theory that identifies biological and nonbiological autonomous behaviors. It also addresses the development of algorithms that allow for the creation of multifunctional robots. The work is focused on solving two problems. The first is to identify a physicalist theory capable of explaining how behaviors are produced. The second is to develop qualitative computational methods that contribute to the development of multifunctional robots. This second issue stems from human beings using and communicating with qualitative information in their everyday lives.
Motivation, hypotheses, and goalsNewton's mechanics, cell theory, the kinetic theory of gases, Maxwell's equations, and general relativity are examples of unification theories. Each of these brought about not only a new view of nature but also the development of new technologies and research. Unification theories are so beneficial to science and engineering that the effort required to search for a unification theory for any field of science is fully justified. Currently, the phenomena of behaviors are divided into disjointed sets and described individually, and many questions remain about behaviors. This, along with the importance of unification theories, led to the motivation for the work conducted in this doctoral thesis. The research that was carried out was based on the hypothesis of the General Theory of Exobehavior (GTE), which is capable of unifying behaviors. However, this theory is based on two hypotheses: the hypothesis of unification of behaviors and the hypothesis of the physicalism of behaviors. These hypotheses are outlined as follows.Hypothesis of the unification of behaviors: All behaviors of biological and nonbiological systems are part of a single set of phenomena.