We have already more than doubled the lifespan. But, regardless of the medical advances, there is a limit to how much more we can extend life. Immortality is not likely.
I think the potential.is there, just not the time to do it. Things are accelerating.
And Einstein in 1934: “There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”
Source: New Scientist
Michio Kaku wrote a good article on this subject: Impossible physics: Never say never
Welp, there goes my plan to become the “Highlander”.
As to certain other things, I suspect that there are lifespan enhancement experiments in progress, and we are seeing them in action with the super powerful and wealthy. (I won’t mention names, but you get the idea.)
I suspect that even should they succeed, the processes involved will be so expensive as to only be available to the ‘elites’. Blecch.
Personally, I hope they never succeed, and I think I’ll breathe a sigh of relief if/when the current batch have shuffled off their mortal coils.
Actually, we have NOT extended lifespan in any meaningful way.
We HAVE increased the AVERAGE lifespan, by reducing infant death rates, accident death rates, and disease death rates.
When the average survival rate of infants was 60%, that dragged down the average age considerably. For a recent example of that, I present my family:
My grandmother had 5 children. 2 of those children died in infancy. My father lived to 72, his older brother lived to 74, and his youngest sister to 80.
Add those ages up and you get 226 years. Divide that by 3, and they lived an average of 75 years, which is pretty close to the norm of today. However, add in the two that died in infancy, and the average drops considerably, to 45 years, which is pretty close to what average age at death was before modern medicine became so widespread.
Lots of folks lived to 70+ way back when, but so many more died in childhood that the statistics were wildly skewed.