Could John Smith seek refuge in claiming that the question considers a different John Smith?
We could make the question refer to any John Smith: Question 4: If anyone who is commonly known as John Smith were asked Question 4 while playing this game, would this person answer ‘no’? There! Now we mess the brain of any John Smith up. If this is not desirable, possibly because it seems a bit general or vague, we could always make the description more specific; for example: Question 4: If John Smith, who lives at 21 Arkady Road, Bridgeport, Nottingham, United Kingdom, Earth were asked Question 4 while playing this game, would he answer ‘no’? If we keep going there will be little doubt that the question applies to you and only you. Even worrying about this is a fallacy, however. Penrose’s question identifies an algorithm that satisfies certain criteria (obeying the rules about what the algorithm Cq(n) is for given values of q and n). Any algorithm that satisfies these criteria can be considered to be the subject of the question. As it happens there is only one unique algorithm that d
