RIP, Scotty.

Of course, given that he had Alzheimers, he may have been dead by any useful definition for some time, just as Ronald Reagan was, even if the empty shell of the body continued to metabolize. In many ways, I fear this disease more than cancer, because it robs you and your loved ones of what is essentially you, while leaving them with an ongoing burden that can only be relieved by the final, physical death, which cannot come too soon once the mind is gone.

This, to me, is a powerful case for euthanasia. We may (and I suspect, will) come up with a cure for Alzheimers in the sense of preventing the damage, but once the damage is done, there’s no repairing it–it’s information death, which is actually much more final than metabolic death.

[Update on Wednesday evening]

How appropriate. They’re beaming him up. So to speak.