Brian Greene is  professor of physics at Columbia University, New York and author of the award-winning book ‘The Elegant Universe’. He is an expert in string theory, which attempts to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics. Despite our series on Science and Faith before Christmas, I’m still struggling to understand string theory.

In his new book, ‘The Hidden Reality’, Professor Greene says:  “Recent mathematical investigations in fundamental physics, including string theory, suggest our universe is part of a grander ‘multiverse’ that contains a vast assortment of other universes.

“Our universe could have countless duplicates, complete with copies of us . . . The last 500 years have seen one demotion after another for the human species. From thinking we were at the centre of the universe we now know we live on a tiny planet orbiting an insignificant star in an average galaxy. What we could be facing now is the biggest demotion of all — the idea that there is an infinite number of other universes.”

He also speculates that fundamental physics may even offer new insights into consciousness. “Some people believe that an essential non-physical aspect (spirit, soul, life force) is required to animate the physical.

“The position that makes most sense to me is that one’s physical and mental characteristics are just a manifestation of how the particles in one’s body are arranged. Specify the particle arrangement and you’ve specified everything.”

Now, though I’m no scientist and understand only a little of these things, I don’t have much of a problem with the idea of a ‘multiverse’. However, I do think it’s a big leap from that to denying the uniqueness of the human species, and stripping back our existence to the purely physical.

I’m with Abbot Zerchi , who says (in ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz‘ by Walter M. Miller, Jr.): “You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.”

OK, so that’s not a Biblical statement, and probably goes too far in the other direction (after all Jesus rose bodily from the dead and we are not, nor ever will be, just disembodied souls) but maybe it helps to restore some balance.

(Greene’ comments taken from the Sunday Times article: Science closes in on theory of everything 6 March 2011)