All-Knowing Being is Lonely [closed]

Question

A Story about a lonely All-Knowing Being

All-Knowing Being kidnapped you and placed you inside its home. You are well fed and have everything you need. The thing is, you can't leave and you must play a game of your choice with the Being each day to entertain it for few hours or more.

As you were about to ask it politely, if you can leave at once, it knew and answered before you even had a chance to speak: "I see, and I knew that that day would've come and will come. The day you manage to beat me at a game, will be your last day here." Then it slowly and sadly returned to its room as the night was falling.

But just before it closed the door, you asked silently: "Promise?" - It replied just a moment before closing the doors: "I would never lie to a friend."

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The next morning you wanted to play rock, paper, scissors hoping you can get lucky. But the Being knew every move that you will make and had beaten you each and every single time, since it's all-knowing of course.

You had in mind to play a simple tic-tac-toe since you knew you can't lose at such a simple game. But it would always end in a draw since the Being knows how to play each such game perfectly. But you were smart, and decided to challenge it to a Connect Four since the first player can always force a win if it plays perfectly, and you have all the time in the world to practice.

The second morning, the Being had already sticked a new "fair game rule" on the game board: "If the game is played in turns, a set of rounds should be played where each player takes a role of both the first and the second player. The true winner is the one who can win as both the first and the second player. This is to ensure that the game is fair for both players"
And so you won as the first player yes, but you needed to also win as the second player and thus your plan had failed yet again.

Now as the third morning came, you thought that perhaps it should be a game of pure chance. A coin toss! But yet again, for it to be considered a "fair" game, If one tosses a coin, the other calls the heads/tails or the other way around. When you tossed the coin, it knew the outcome even before the toss so you were helpless. But if it tossed the coin it also knew exactly how to "undetectably" force a coin to land on a side it preferred. And no, it didn't conisdered this a "cheat" since even a powerful slow motion camera could not capture and prove its dirty trick.

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You thought, that there isn't any hope. Since it knows everything, it can easily find a way to prevent you from winning. Even if you found a game you can easily win every time, it could know a way to undetectably and secretly make you play a wrong move and you wouldn't even realize you were distracted!

And so as one of the many mornings was rising yet again, you were already accepting your destiny to stay here forever. But you noticed the Being being sad and worried, and then it said: "I knew this day had to come. Of course I did. I had to know. I know everything."

And you stood there confused. "Is this the day I am set free? But how could it be? I haven't even thought of a specific game to play for today." But suddenly your heart started jumping wildly. "I KNOW IT. HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?"

"Being!" you shouted.
"I CHALLENGE YOU TO A GAME OF..."

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The puzzle question is, to come up with the game that had set you free by the end of that final day.

I have a specific solution in mind that is required to solve the puzzle, but if you have your own "thinking outside of the box" solution or a clever way to trick the Being, that would be interesting.

NOTE: (One of the ways you can "think outside of the box")

The game you propose doesn't need to be a real life game already existing somewhere. You can come up with your own game, and as long as the Being considers it "fair" (If it's fair when played between 2 random humans, there is no reason it shouldn't be fair).

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Notes

NOTE: Mithrandir had a interesting possibility for a solution, but in order to "win", you can't just win by the rules of the played game. You need to "beat" the Being in the game overall. That means if multiple "wins" can be achieved, they are merely counted as points. Thus his solution does not quite fit. Also, do not omit the fact that the Being defines "the fair game", but also don't misunderstand that fact either. This note is just to make the puzzle more clear.

NOTE: Philip Schiff also had an idea, but it does not fit. If your game is a set of games and the goal is to lose most games, winning a game in the set will not be considered a win. Problem here is the definition of a win. The true "win" is acquired by satisfying the win condition of the overall game. The overall game here is the set of games itself. Same case as the win as the first player in a Connect Four as mentioned in the story. It does not count since the overall game is being defined as a set of the two or more proposed games to make it "fair".

NOTE: A game is not really a game if you are "not playing it", thus a "Pure chance game" isn't actually a game. You need to have at least some interaction to be considered a playable game. And if there is interaction, being gets a chance to "cheat".

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Hints

Since the puzzle itself caused many confusions and misunderstanding, I decided to drop some hints and sleep on it (I actually mentioned this somewhere in the comments I think.):

$(0)$

To beat it you need to use the $2$ things you know about against it.

$(1)$

It can't lie to you, since you are its "friend".

$(2)$

It knows everything, since it is all-knowing.

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Message to Viewers

You people had some nice thinking outside of the box solutions so far, and I think I wrongly tried to declare them all "not fitting" by putting up all sorts of specific constrains. You can say I was trying to "force" you to think of the specific solution that combines the both hints in a single game. I should've stayed more open minded perhaps. Anyway, a comment on the hints:

I guess anything that uses the "knowledge" and the fact that the being can't cheat by lying, thus can't "not know something" can work perfectly fine against it.

The real solution is based on that and could actually even be a really interesting game in real life among $2$ or more players.

Answer 1

The Game

In this game,

if you think of the Game, you lose. Since the Being is all-knowing, it knows that you will be thinking of it before you are thinking of it, and so it loses.

Answer 2

There is a famous answer to this question: the game of

Chicken.

In this game, in case you aren't familiar with it,

two players simultaneously choose to be Brave or Cautious. (The traditional version has two cars speeding towards one another on a road. You can swerve aside or keep going.) The worst outcome (for everyone) is Brave/Brave (everyone dies). The best is to be Brave when your opponent is Cautious (you live and get to be known as the brave one). In between those, you'd prefer both to be Cautious rather than for you to be Cautious while your opponent gets to boast of being Brave.

If you play this game against an omniscient opponent,

you simply decide that you will be Brave. Your opponent knows this and (because B/B is the worst outcome of all) be Cautious. And you know this, so you truly can decide to be Brave without being crazy. And then you win.

What's not quite satisfactory to me about this as an answer to the question is that

what happens in this game depends critically on the players' attitudes to outcomes that go beyond who wins and loses, and maybe that's not in the spirit of the question.

Answer 3

I would challenge the being to a game of

solving this puzzle.

Not to be overly flippant, but seriously, if I were opposite an All-Knowing Being and I were stumped by a problem, my first instinct would be to

ask him to help solve my problem, in this case, to name a game that I could fairly and plausibly win against it given all the restrictions in place.

As such, knowing that I have finally seen the light, the AKB is forced to release me because

it has no choice but to tell me exactly how I can escape. It cannot lie to me, after all...

Answer 4

"List the things and facts that you don't know. Whoever lists the most wins." (For example: "The 100th decimal digit of pi" could be an entry of this list)

The list of facts unknown to the All-Knowing Being should be empty.

Answer 5

Can it be

"Let's play a game consisting of a series of other games. Whomever loses the most games in the series is the winner of the game."

Answer 6

I would play

Cheat (Card Game)

The Being can't lie (as it says), so in this game, in which you have to lie in order to win, he can't win.

Anyway I'm thinking right now that the Being could know your lies, so you can't lie neither. ...

I'm a bit confused...

Answer 7

I'm not sure why nobody's given this fairly simple and obvious solution already, but here you go:

Let's play...

Duck, Duck, Goose

Basic rules of the game:

This is a classic children's game.

In it, one player is 'it', the others sit in a circle on the floor, facing inward. The 'it' player walks around the outside of the circle, aloud calling each other player either "Duck", or "Goose", while passing them. If they're declared "Duck", nothing happens. But if declared a "Goose", that touched player must stand up, chase, and attempt to tag the 'it' player, while the 'it' player tries to run completely around the circle and sit in the 'goose' player's vacated seat.

For the 'it' player to win, they must successfully sit in the goose player's seat without being tagged. For the 'goose' player to win, they must tag the 'it' player.

Adaptations according to the rules of this puzzle:

As this is a game with two different roles for the two players, it must be played twice, according to the special "fair game" rule; once with the Being being the 'goose', and once with the Being being 'it'.

And why the strategy works:

The kidnapping victim is the ghost of a deceased duck.

Being as 'it': The Being cannot call the kidnapping victim a 'goose' as that would be a lie (which isn't allowed by hint 1); the victim is (or rather, was) a duck. Since the Being cannot win without declaring the victim to be a goose, the Being must therefore forfeit this round.

Being as 'goose': After being declared the 'goose', the Being cannot tag the kidnapping victim no matter how quickly they stand or run, since the victim has long since died, and is now just an incorporeal ghost.

Therefore, the Being loses both rounds of the game, and must release the phantom mallard, letting it finally ascend to its just reward and final rest.

Answer 8

A Coin Toss isn't exactly a Game of Chance. Not completely, at least. As long as there is a choice involved, or the game rules make it so that there is more than one possible outcome for any action, the being will win, because there's a choice and he will pick the most convenient one.

In a coin toss game, there's choice. That's why it wouldn't work.

Which means that any game of pure chance, and really pure chance (no choice allowed whatsoever), would fit the bill and would give you a fair chance of winning - and you inevitably will, since it's just a matter of trying over and over until luck favors you, and luck doesn't depend on any knowledge.

For example, the Game of the Goose, where you simply roll the dice and move, and there is absolutely zero choice involved (at least in the original version) would give both you and the being the same odds of winning, which means you will win in a short amount of tries.

I don't see why this wouldn't be an allowed answer, since it fits all the criteria required, but in case it doesn't there are only two options left.

1) A game where having knowledge is detrimental and would work against him

2) Don't play at all. To be fair, that's the only way you would win against an all-knowing being if for some reason it decided that games with no choice are banned, even though they are as fair as it gets, since luck favors no one.

Honestly, the last option brings up an interesting point: an All-Knowing Being would know how to make you stay, and since he is lonely he wants you to stay. Actually, he would even know how to not feel lonely.

In other words, this whole puzzle game collapses on itself if we consider its structural integrity.

So there you go, both the answer/s and why this actually doesn't make too much sense (when talking about extreme stuff, such as gods or all-knowing beings, it's easy to make puzzles collapse and crumble under their own weight)

If we want to look past how coherent and logical the entire structure of the riddle is and suspend belief, then the answer should definitely be the first one i provided.

A Game of Pure Chance is as fair as it gets.

Answer 9

Maybe you could play:

Hide and seek, then as the creature hides, you can find your way out. Since it can never be found to win the game, you will never accidentaly run into it and can look the whole place for an exit!

I also thought about some game with:

Guessing quantum states. Since those are truly random and not even the creature would be able to predict the outcome, you'd have a chance of winning!

Answer 10

I'd consider playing

Russian Roulette

It's completely fair if both players take it in turns

Loading the guns

Although it's not ideal since there's a chance one might 'lose' (permenantly), at least it would level the playing field.

Answer 11

Play a trivia game. In reverse.

You win by stating a question you do not know the answer to. This should be easy for you, impossible for the Being.

Answer 12

Let's play a game of

Name all the historical Ottoman emperors you can think of. Whoever names the fewest, wins.

Luckily,

I don't know many Ottoman emperors, and wouldn't even remember all the ones the Being listed off.

Answer 13

Something like this should work.

Each asks 10 questions to each other, and both answer their and the opponents questions to be fair. Since Being can't lie it will get all 20 correct, and I't might make you know all of its 10 answers, but you can make so that you can't know an answer to your own questions, so its 20 vs 10, but you make the winner the one who knows the least?

Answer 14

How about a game of never-have-I-ever?

The being is all knowing. It is also fairly powerful, since it can grab a person and trap them in it's home, it can guarantee food and water and necessities - apparently forever, it's lonely and bored, and probably has tried every thing it could try in an effort to stave off such loneliness. I would bet quite a lot that it has done things you haven't, it certainly must lose any challenge of "knowing" facts ("I never knew..." or "I never learned...", "I never was able to say/name/repeat/recite X")

While the original version is a drinking game, there are versions that count off successful "hits" ("ten fingers" or something like that, where getting ten things you've never done and your opposition has is a win), or you could even leave it a drinking game if you have the first to finish their bottle, loses.

Alternatively you could try a rousing game of two-truths-and-a-lie. The original game is to make three statements, with the correct proportion of falsehoods, and have your opponent guess which of the three statements is a lie. Its original purpose was an icebreaker/getting to know you, but it can perhaps be made more competitive, even fairly.

Certainly the being will be able to tell accurately which of your statements is correct or false (maybe even if you use stumpers you yourself do not know), and so won't lose in that way. But, it must forfeit on its own turn, the first time and every time - because it cannot lie to you.

Answer 15

You say "You'll say a sentence that can be correct or not. If it's correct, I'll get what I want most (get released) and you become an ordinary bug. If it's incorrect, I'll get out now and you'll turn into stone."

Then it says "I'll be turned to stone and release you", so you won't (necessarily) be released.

The roles change after that, but since it's desperate to keep you there, it just replaces "I'll get released" with "You'll stay here", which won't happen. No matter what actual "winning" and "losing" conditions you add for it to be a valid game, they'll be irrelevant.

Answer 16

An adaptation of Robert Mandeville's answer.

Who can stay released the longest?

Answer 17

The game rules:

Each player takes a turn to ask their oponent a question. If the oponent knows the answer, the player stays in the game. If the oponent doesn't know the answer, the player loses the game instantly.

It would take time but eventually the being would run out of options and lose.

Answer 18

I would argue any game where the "winning" component is shared with all players would suffice. Since you winning a game does not seem to exclude the being "not-losing" and you would be "winning" a game by its rules. So games like co-opoly or freedom: the underground railroad would do.

Answer 19

Maybe it's a game of...

Life (not Conway's Game of Life but rather the life that we are living)

This is a game where there is a winner and a loser.

The Loser is the one who dies, the Winner is the one who survives longer than the other person. Every being that is born is bound to die at some point in their life, even the All-Knowing Being is not immortal. It knows that it must die, yet it can't do anything about it. There is no cheating for death is inevitable.

The protagonist wins because

He is still alive when the All-Knowing Being starts to die. The protagonist will win and there is nothing the Being can do to stop it (to its sad dismay)

Answer 20

This isn't technically the answer but it is a surefire way to get the answer.

Challenge the being to Truth or Dare. If the being selects Truth then you ask it "How will I free myself today?" If the being selects Dare then you dare it to set you free. When it's your turn to play you select Truth and then lie.

Answer 21

Adding another answer because i don't have enough Reputation to comment directly on the author's original post.

I see that now three hints have been added, and one of them is "it can't lie to you".

Honestly, that's kind of very very very odd.

First and foremost, it isn't really specified anywhere clearly, except the "i would never lie to a friend" - which doesn't mean it would actually never lie.

Second thing. After all the talk about how he would cheat to win and always find a way flip around things (which is lying by definition, since he is hiding information from you) now he cannot lie to a "friend"? (a friend he kidnapped and is keeping there by the way - not very friendly xD)

Sssoo, well... take it as constructive criticism if you are the author of this, but this riddle is very wobbly, and too hazy - one critical hint wasn't well expressed and actually contradicted by the answers you gave about cheating and so on xD