The Ethics of Madness

Niven, Larry. "The Ethics of Madness." If April 1967. Collected Neutron Star. New York: Ballantine, 1968. Known Space series — although that is argued.[1]

Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base gives as a synopsis: "In the future, the autodoc treatments which keep a man's paranoia under control fail, and he commits a terrible crime, which result in his being hunted by the survivor who wants revenge."[2] John. J. Pierce is interested in the survivor and the issue of indefinitely-long life — part of the theme (motif, trope) of immortality — when the human brain is finite in its memory and expansive but ultimately limited in capability. Pierce quotes on the result when the body is kept young, but the mind fails:

He was totally a man of habits now. He had not had an original thought in centuries. The ship’s clock governed his life in every detail, taking him to the aurodoc or the kitchen or the gym or the steam room or the bedroom or the bathroom. You’d have thought he was an ancient robot following a circular tape, no longer able to respond to outside stimuli. (Neutron Star p. 206)

RDE, with thanks to JJP, 3July20