Scanning the technology: Foreward

Publication of the Special Issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE - an issue dedicated to "Industrial Innovations Using Soft Computing," is an important milestone in the evolution of soft computing (SC). It is a symbol of recognition that a decade after its debut, SC is emerging as a coherent body of concepts and techniques that has wide-ranging applications to the conception, design, and utilization of information/intelligent systems. Progress in science and technology has led to brilliant successes. We have sent men to the moon, built the web, and are on the brink of mapping the structure of genes. But what we have not learned is how to mimic the remarkable human capability to perform a wide variety of physical and mental tasks without any measurements and any computations. In performing such tasks, e.g., driving in city traffic or playing golf, we employ perceptions-rather than measurements-of time, distance, speed, shape, color, likelihood, and other attributes of physical and mental objects. It is this human capability that existing scientific theories do not possess. The computational theory of perceptions is aimed at adding this capability to measurement-based theories. I believe that, in time, the capability to operate on perception- based information will be added to all members of the SC coalition.