Talk:Penny/@comment-25555436-20150308201601/@comment-82.46.35.19-20150422222753

I think SaM was just making a reasonable assumption that it was. Since the scientists and engineers managed to give Penny a soul, it is extremely unlikely that they didn't know what processes were involved. They were likely to at least understand the soul to a sufficient degree to the point that they could replicate it. Now admittedly, if one argues that when an organism's neural network becomes complex enough it develops as a soul, they may simply have put all their efforts into the development of a synthetic brain and hoped that it would result in the creation of a soul but that sounds unlikely, given that the aim of the project was to develop something with a soul and one would assume that those requesting resources for it would be able to show that such an objective was possible based on an understanding of the process, not just "well we sure hope it will".

Of course this all depends on what the soul in RWBY actually is as well. It seems to may it may be consciousness that can influence the physical world beyond the brain, via things such as Aura and the artificial creation of consciousness is what the project that created Penny was aiming for (this fact is one which Ruby has either taken in her stride or has yet to understand the full implications of, given her surprisingly calm reaction), as opposed to just creating more advanced versions of robots such as the AKs, which seem to lack consciousness and are likely just glorified computer hard drives that can walk.

Again where this places our dear friends the Grimm is certainly a mystery, but again, since the Grimm act seemingly contrary to the laws of physics and don't seem to be part nor follow the laws of what we would conventionally consider 'nature' (they could be part of nature in the RWBY), they should probably be treated as something completely different (the term 'metaphysics' has been thrown around when describing them at times).

Now certainly, Penny's soul could be the result of what might as well be magic, but I don't think SaM is entirely unreasonable as suggesting it is a physical process which has been sufficiently understood to allow one to replicate it. It makes sense, though your statement that that may not be where the creators intended to take it isn't unreasonable either.