Martin Gardner, the grand old man of recreational mathematics and puzzles, once wrote that Raymond Smullyan “is a unique set of personalities that includes a philosopher, logician, mathematician, musician, magician, humorist, writer, and maker of marvelous puzzles.”

In this delightful video, you can hear Smullyan playing Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Beethoven Sonatas, Scarlatti Sonatas and Schubert’s Moments Musicauxand. Smullyan tosses out logic puzzles, musical anecdotes and near the end of the video, he also reads out passages from his books “This Book Needs No Title” and “The Tao is Silent”. Be warned though, this video is almost an hour long!

Although the eminent pianist Gunnar Johansen once expected Smullyan to ” become one of our important artists”, Smullyan developed tendonitis and could not go on to become a professional pianist.

I shall use this post to quote a passage from his book “Some Interesting Memories: A Paradoxical Life” that made me laugh:

...a man …was in search of immortality and read all sorts of alchemy books, but could not find anything practical in them. Then, he heard of a great sage in the East who was a specialist in this area, and so he went on a pilgrimage to find him. After twelve years, he found the sage and asked him, “Is it really possible for one to live forever?”

The sage replied, “Oh, quite easily, providing he does two things.”

“And what are those two things?” the man asked eagerly.

“The first thing is to always tell the truth, never make any false statement. That’s a small price to pay for immortality, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” replied the man, “and what is the second thing?”

“The second thing,” replied the sage, “is to say ‘I will repeat this sentence tomorrow.’ If you do those two things, I guarantee that you will live forever!”

The man thought for a moment and said: “Oh, of course, if I do those two things I will live forever, because if I truthfully say that sentence today, then I will indeed repeat it tomorrow…and so forth. But your solution is not a practical one! How can I be sure of truthfully saying that I will repeat this sentence tomorrow if I can’t be sure of being alive tomorrow! Your solution is not a practical one!”

“Oh,” replied the sage, “you wanted a practical solution! No, I don’t deal with practice; I deal only with theory.”

Here’s more funny and philosophical stuff from Smullyan: a dialogue between a mortal and God on freewill.

See also this unofficial myspace page created by a fan of Smullyan.