Michelangelo once remarked, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

In the book Insurmountable Simplicities there is a story titled "The Hidden Statue." A granite block is dragged home by a man who bought it from an artist who claims that inside the granite is a part shaped exactly like Michelangelo's famous sculpture 'David.'

The man's wife is skeptical. "They gave you a block of granite and made you pay a fortune for it. A part hidden inside a block of granite is not a statue, even though it may be shaped like one."

"But if it is shaped like Michelangelo's 'David' why is it not a 'David'?" he asks. Maybe there's a 'David' inside this cucumber!

"It is not 'David' because it is not YET a 'David'" she replies, with stunning logic.

We are deep into philosophical conundra here. In these stories we also investigate the meaning of language and stumble over puzzles.

Insurmountable Simplicities is a modest-sized paperback written by two deeply scientific philosophers, Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi. They "invite us to ponder" such themes as "personal identity, causality and responsibility, fortune, the nature of things, the paradoxes of time and space and the interplay between logic and language."

This is the stuff of doctoral theses. Told as stories, however, the concepts can be quite funny, and tantalizingly just-almost-maybe understandable. A philosophical voyage into The Twilight Zone.

In the final story, researchers at a company at last have perfected Universal Acid, a substance that eats through anything. At the same time, another department has invented the Universal Container, a vessel nothing can corrode. We're heading for a showdown.

In other stories: Two lions discuss who exactly is behind bars; them, or the visitors who stare at them?

Or this one: In Reverse City you get a dollar along with every lottery ticket.

As a citizen of Reverse City explains: "Every day thousands of people in Straight Town throw away a dollar just for the sake of trying their luck. I find that utterly absurd... Compare your way with ours: we have an infinitely small chance of losing versus an almost certain probability of making a dollar. Now, that's a good reason to play, don't you agree?"

In 'Partial Amnesia' a prisoner loses the memory of his horrific crime. Should he continue to be punished for it?

Other stories ask if strawberry ice cream tastes the same to everyone, why are there no scholarships for third best students (and how would anyone compete to be third best?), why, if time travel is possible, hasn't it already taken place?

Many readers will enjoy these philosophical conundrums. Some may want to throw the book across the room, but that is completely up to them.

Aired Sunday April 27, 2008 at 10:55 am and Wednesday April 30, 2008 at 1:00 pm

Orders/Information:

Roberto Casati's personal home page, a fascinating site on all things Casati: www.roberto-casati.com

Insurmountable Simplicities, Thirty-nine Philosophical Conundrums by Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi. Columbia University Press paperback $17.95. ISBN 9780231137232.

Shadows: Unlocking Their Secrets, from Plato to Our Time by Robert Casati. Vintage Books paperback $13. ISBN 0375707115.
From the Publisher: "In this original, wide-ranging, and endlessly thought-provoking work of popular nonfiction, a leading science writer uncovers the pervasive presence of shadows in our world. For Plato, shadows were the symbol of our limitations. For Galileo, they knocked the Earth from the center of the cosmos. They are a source of fear and a symbol of ignorance, and they loom large in art and design, mythology and folklore, physics and metaphysics, and architecture and urban planning. From shadow puppets and the psychology of shadows to the role of shadows in astronomy and the influence of shadows on the architectural profiles of our cities, Roberto Casati awakens our fascination in this tour-de-force of investigation and imagination."

Roberto Casati (b. Milan, Italy, 1961) has a long-standing collaboration with Achille Varzi of Columbia University; they have co-authored 18 papers, co-edited 3 volumes, and written together the classic Holes and Other Superficialities (1994), and Parts and Places (1999), both published with MIT Press, as well as two books for the general public (containing stories for grown ups and children, respectively): Insurmountable Simplicities, translated in 8 languages, and The Planet of Disappearing Things.

As near as I can tell, The Planet of Disappearing Things is "Il pianeta dove scomparivano le cose" in Italian, and it is only available (Euro 13.50) in that language and in that country.

You could pursue it here: http://www.bol.it/libri/scheda/ea978880618071.html?referrer=paritein0001

or here: http://www.omnialibri.info/libri/vid-54920.html

Finally, for another take on all things illogical: Crimes Against Logic, Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders by Jamie Whyte. McGraw-Hill paperback $12.95. ISBN 0071446435.

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