Has the First Person to Achieve Immortality Already Been Born?

I'm hoping the first person to achieve immortality was born at least 29 years ago.

I didn't realize that we've made any progress towards extending the maximum human lifespan. It's probably a lot harder than we think. I guess we're at the point where Jules Verne was in the late 19th century; we like to dream big.

A civilisation where people can live arbitrarily long lives may have some interesting consequences. For one, cultural stagnation caused by people with entrenched beliefs sticking around. A lot of social progress and scientific development happens over the dead bodies of the old holdouts.<p>Then in the beginning at least there is the risk of extreme social inequality and a gerontocratic ruling class. Only the wealthy will have access to life extension and it may be the wealthy power structures that deny the technology to other people.<p>Finally, a civilisation made up of long-lived individuals may become extremely risk-averse, with possible consequences of reduced experimentation, creativity and rebellion. They may also turn out a little like what Larry Niven makes of the Puppeteer race: powerful, cowardly creatures, highly ritualistic, paternalistic and soft-totalitarian.

There&#x27;s a short story of a woman who was a bit of a luddite, but late in life her children and grandchildren convinced her to adopt &quot;upgrades&quot; here and there, until she became almost entirely virtual. She retained much of her humanity, but was able to be in many places at once, &quot;inhabiting&quot; purpose-built bodies, and building up a certain reputation and popularity. Eventually humanity&#x27;s probes make contact with aliens, and she&#x27;s chosen to be humanity&#x27;s ambassador.<p>I wish I could recall the name of that story, but it always painted a pleasant picture of immortality to me. Hopefully someone here recognizes it and can share it with us.

You won&#x27;t really know until they don&#x27;t die.

The second law of thermodynamics answers this question with a definitive &quot;no&quot;.

Assuming we could keep the human body alive forever, I don&#x27;t think we could handle it a person would eventually go insane. Also it would get incredibly boring at some point and I imagine the suicide rate would be somewhere near a 100% or at minimum people would allow themselves to die.<p>I definitely don&#x27;t want to live forever.<p>So my answer is No, and no one will ever be immortal.

This must be done for real space travel that leads to truly inhabiting other &quot;earths&quot;.

Yes of course, is an afro-american woman and her name is Henrietta Lacks