Why build theories?

For genetic algorithms and evolution* to get from some state A to some distant state B requires that one or more quasi-continuous paths exist from A to B through some intermediate states C, D, E, etc. The creation of theories of the world can allow for larger designed leaps from A to B.
Theories also are a compact way of organizing knowledge speeding up search and reducing the memory capacity required.

* which created brains and mind

Lotus eaters

With a scalar utility an AI like Marcus Hutter's AIXI might evolve toward lower intelligence if it resides in a sufficiently simple and benign environment.* Indeed, its the harsh world we find ourselves in that has forced life to develop  mind.  A society of A.s.a. H. agents with their vector utilities (at least one component of which values mental prowess of some sort) will always seek to produce some offspring with increasing mentality.**

* even temporarily
**I include the acquisition of knowledge as a part of this.

Hierarchically structured general intelligence

I notice that Paul Yaworsky of the Air Force Research Laboratory has argued for the hierarchical organization of general intelligent systems.* He seems to imagine something like A.s.a. H. but he offers nothing in the way of algorithms or other detail.

* In his recent papers A Model of General Intelligence, 7 Nov. 2018, arXiv: 1811.02546, and Realizing Intelligence, 2018, arXiv.

Robot brain transplants

Some LEGO robot designs allow you to readily remove the NXT or EV3 brick without otherwise disassembling the robot.* One can then swap in an Arduino or Raspberry Pi in its place. (Given a suitable shield.) The Raspberry Pi could make use of a neural compute stick for example. Arduino has sensors for humidity, odor, rain, barometric pressure, etc.

* Damien Kee's RileyRover being one example.

Laws of nature

We describe the world and the way it evolves, the patterns/regularities that we see in it.* We take note of our part in this. We try to do this in as compact a fashion as possible. These descriptions may make use of sentences in a natural language, equations in a system of mathematics, diagrams and icons or what have you.** By a "law of nature" we simply mean a rather good description of some pattern(s) we see in the world, some regularity.

* See my blog of 1 Sept. 2012.
** Maybe we might use a pattern of musical notes. Certainly we use spoken sentences, lecture. (Spoken language may have come a million years before written language.) Musical patterns may be well suited to expressing and conveying things like energy, excitement, and emotions.

Reconceptualizing reality, fibring logics

More alternate realities, alternative logics:

Propositional logics
Predicate logics
Spatial logics
Temporal logics
Default logics
Defeasible logics
Free logics
Paraconsistent logics
Infinitary logics
Deontic logics
Dynamic logics
Dependence logics
Illocutionary logics
Plural logics
Iconic logics
Higher order logics
Categorical logics
Threshold logics
Feature logics
Tense logics
Multiple valued logics
Term logics
Quantum logics
Multi-modal logics
Epistemic logics
Intuitionistic logics
Dialectical logics
Relevant logics
Fuzzy logics
Probabilistic logics
Matrix logics
Substructural logics
Markov logics
Etc.

See chapter XI of Richard Epstein’s Propositional Logics: The Semantic Foundations of Logic second edition (Wadsworth, 2001). Epstein's views expressed there are similar to my own.

As a means of finding alternatives we may intentionally seek out oppositional concepts. See, for example, Tizhoosh and Ventresca, Oppositional Concepts in Computational Intelligence, Springer, 2008.

Reconceptualizing reality; alternate realities

The philosophers Plato and Descartes claimed to have had, at certain moments in their lives, a new view of the world, its basic constituents, and its rules which were totally different from our conventional view of reality. (Reflections on Kurt Gödel, H. Wang, MIT Press, 1987) For most people the world is composed of objects, pushed around in a 3 dimensional space by fields, and following something like Newton's laws of motion. What are possible alternative conceptualizations? Lewis' book, Quantum Ontology (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers some possibilities, like holistic quantum wave functions, in a high dimensional space, following something like a Schrodinger equation.

A physicist who spends some of his time doing quantum mechanical research and some of his time doing classical mechanics would be working in  two alternative realities. Also an example of scientific pluralism.