aha, you and i disagree, if we last long enough i think we will "de-evolve" (not exactly they word for it). right now our bodies are built to live in the wild chasing down animals and killing them with sticks. if we were to last another 5 mil years, imagine what traits will die out as unessacary, and how much some traits like itellectual and social inteligence (in born not experience raised) will be rewarded. I'd also be interested to know the impact to societal evolution as well. I mean look at the difference between society from back in the civil war until now.

EDIT: I also wonder how long religions would last.

I believe Sid was making a sarcastic comment about my views. Like I said, I'm not going to argue my opinion.

EDIT: Also religion will last as long as we don't know who created us or if we were created at all.

No I wasn't, sorry if it was a bit confusing.
Thats my honest opinion, we need to get rid of the old ballast so that we can evolve further. Thats how evolution works.

We are evolving - much faster than (biological) evolution ever was able to do.
And, if we (as individuals) live longer we are able to evolve our knowledge and technologies even faster, making 'natural' evolution obsolet.

well it sort of is "natural evolution" we naturally evolved brains large and powerful enough with bodies able enough to figure out, create, and abstract new ever evolving systems such as society, communication, science, etc.

I used 'biological' and 'natural' synonym for genetic evolution while actually evolution became a general term for changes that follows modified and generalized rules of the biological evolution.

i just need a longer little finger to make typing '=' easier while coding!

A little bit uncommon, but go to a plastic surgeon of your choice and show him your wishlist!

I think immortality could rather slow down the evolution/progress of a society. Think about it: New ideas mostly come from the younger generation while the old generation is rather opposed to it. That problem is usually solved when the older generations die.
For example, nowadays younger people all use computers, smartphones etc., while some older people refuse to even buy a computer, and would propably continue to do so for a long time, if they were immortal.
But more importantly, some centuries ago, only a few people fought for democracy, while most others were opposed to it. That seems to be one of the reasons the Weimar Republic failed.

An immortal can accumulate his knowledge continuesly, while a new generation has to learn from the beginning again.