Thinking

I have a horrible suspicion I'm coming down with another flu/cold; my head is bunged up and I feel awful for no reason.

If you were going to make an intelligence test, a basic portmanteau one, then you might get people doing puzzles under timed conditions. That's essentially what an intelligence test is, though perhaps with a careful variety of puzzles. But when I'm ill I can power through Sudoku and Kakuro and the other puzzles I have lying around, I just sort of hoover them up. Last time I had flu it didn't even feel like thinking -- I just knew where the numbers went, and it was almost mystical. This morning I have done several 5-star Killer Sudokus in quick time, while usually I have to abandon about half of them because I'm stuck. But my brain is clearly not functioning 100%. It feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool. The bugs seem to have impaired some part of it which usually prevents my thinking in that pure mathematical way.

Possibly it's related to this phenomenon, where sleep-deprived people made quick moral decisions based on numerical factors. In the meantime I've had enough of Sudoku and I'm going back to bed.