Are we(with our intelligence) ever going to be able to conquer aging, and defeat the processes of nature?
If we ever do discover/invent this "thing" that can conquer aging, or incredibly slow down aging, what could it possibly be?
Or maybe, we are still evolving..? in a million year maybe humans will be able to live 200,300+ years? Is this possible? or are we already living at our maximum lifespan?
Reverse that, if the trend continues, imo in 300 years we'll probably have an life span that exceed a million years.
The "you" you perceive to be is the interaction between cells that need not be yours. If you have a heart transplant that heart is part of you, if you change each part you would still consider yourself "you". If stem cells that become neurons are injected in your brain and take their place in a harmoneous way with the rest they become you except they could be much younger. These young cells could be negatively impacted by the old environment they are part of, but if you rejuvenate enough of this environment you would become less old from one perspective. Eventually most of the cells you would be composed of would no longer be directly coming from the originals but you would have the vitality of a younger person and would still perceive that you are yourself.
In addition, when you look at fields like genetic engineering, computer-robotics-etc and nanotechnology its reasonable to imagine that some of the beings we now call humans, will change in the next 200 years more than we have in the past million years, some humans will probably be cyborgs that is nanotechnology will be fused in our bodies. Right now our bodies are a host for billions of baterias that help a bit, dont pull their weight or are more or less detrimental, and we have access to various devices we prefer operating with (watch, ipod, computer, glasses/lenses, etc) but that arent integrated. In the future we will probably be hosts for millions of nanites programmed to scan our blood, monitor life signs, boost are immune system like nothing we can imagine, counteract aging/help renew cells, and provide various usefull computerized aid, instead of having a watch/ipod/computer we will have integrated circuitry that provides us with processing and memory, like a laptop in our brain(network, utilities, games, etc). With genetic engineering the shape of our bodies will eventually no longer matter, as we would have the option of changing it behond what we consider to be human, and eventually when the nanotech goes to a level where both it and genetic engineering are in fact advanced molecular programming, then there the difference between artificial beings and our lifeforms will gradually dissipate (and our consciousness can probably travel between bodies by then).
So yes, its only a matter of time and development before we are immortal from our present day perspective and "live" millions of years and that will probably be within a few hundred years, but while it might take a few hundred years to become virtually immortal I think with a combination of techniques including stem cell reintroduction we can reach 200 years life span within a 100 years.
Note that under our current monetary based socio-economic system where you can die of starvation as a 4 years old toddler if you dont have money to eat, its quite probable that a limited portion of the population will have access to life extending tech. If our economic system can change to take all people into consideration then most or all people would have access.