Opening out ageing: On the entropy of all things

Abstract Across the social sciences the predominant engagement with ageing is through the study of human ageing, this also the exclusive concern of the “geography of ageing”. With the aim of advancing scholarship substantially, in this paper we (re)turn to science and consider how a broader, more fundamental understanding of ageing is found in the process of increasing entropy that all entities/systems are eventually subject to and contributors towards. Based on this theoretical foundation – but cognisant of the need for a contemporary posthumanist sensibility – we challenge geographers and others to extend the study of ageing to encompass all entities/systems at all possible levels of scale and complexity, highlighting pockets of partial precedent for this extension in different literatures. We argue that, through accepting this “all‐world ageing” challenge, a more fulsome appreciation of the ageing macrocosm might be arrived at. With the aim of advancing the geography of ageing, this paper cautiously (re)turns to science and considers how a broad, fundamental understanding of ageing is found in the process of increasing entropy. Based on this theoretical anchoring, we challenge geographers to extend the study of ageing to encompass all systems at all possible levels of scale and complexity, supporting our proposition by showing areas of partial precedent for this across different disciplines.