In greek mythology, Achilles the great warrior, was offered a choice. He could either go off to troy, fight and become a very, very powerful hero of legend never to be forgotten for all time, and die while still a young man. Or he could stay in his homeland, and live to be and old man, be loved by his wife and children, and in three generations, forgotten.
He chose to be a legend and, in story, he lives on to this day. The achilles tendon in your foot is named after him and his demise. People still use the term, "Achilles heel" for something that has one important weakness.
Achilles lived maybe, and I'm just guessing here, three thousand years ago. Remembered for three thousand years. Solid effort. But what about, say, three thousand more years? Maybe. ten-thousand years? A million years? I guarantee you that in one million years, no one will remember Achilles. Language will have changed, people will have changed, and if the world is still here it will have changed. If and only if people are still alive to remember anything in one million years.
So really, Achilles isn't immortal. He is just very, very, long lived. I conclude this: Man's dream of Immortality without the assistance of God is impossible. Ideas die. They are more stubborn than us fleshy squishy things, but they are mortal just the same. One day, the Mona Lisa will be dust. Fibonacci's Numbers will be but a dream. In the future, no one will know who Yuri Gagarin, Albert Einstein, Joan of Arc or William Shakespeare are.
No-one and nothing lives forever. But that won't ever stop us trying to. People are dumb. And I think that regardless of how far culture advances people always will be dumb.
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