Walker Percy's Mind and Body

The title Lost in the Cosmos is meant to be a correction to Carl Sagan’s “splendid picture book” Cosmos, which Percy understands as a failed self-help book.  Sagan aims to get our minds off our insignificant selves by getting it on the magnificence of the stars and planets.  Every moment in scientific progress has been about the demotion of the place of man in the cosmos, until he becomes nothing more than an insignificant speck on a pale blue dot.  So he has every reason to use his mind to take pleasure in losing himself in the wonders of the cosmos.  In that sense, Sagan agrees with Socrates that the way of life of the scientist or philosopher (Socrates didn’t distinguish between the two) is “learning how to die” or getting over yourself, all the illusions you have about your personal significance.