Lost in the Cosmos
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Lost in the Cosmos, a novel by the late Walker Percy, is a mock self-help book and social satire on the American value of autonomy published in 2000. Organized into roughly four sections that explore ideas of the self, Percy establishes his thesis that the social ills that plague society are a result of humanity's epic identity crisis. Percy uses semiotic theories (the theories of signs) to argue that human consciousness of the self is unique from all other 'interactions' in the universe in that it is triadic. It requires two sets of diadic interaction between that of the sign user, the sign, and the what the sign stands for in order to be complete. As a result, persons are thrust into the predicament of finding a sign that 'places' themselves. The book contains numerous essays, quizzes, and "thought experiments" designed to satirize conventional self-help texts while provoking readers to undertake a thoughtful contemplation of their existential situations and the search for meaning and purpose that could derive from such reflections.