I remind myself of that every day when I observe people's driving habits. Not using reason as your captain is a matter of habit or choice it seems. Perhaps using reason is also a badly neglected learned behavior, especially with people who buy things they don't need, with the money they don't have, to impress people they don't know.
And if mind is not the captain, what is?
Reason is conditional, each reason has a reason.. as far you wish to go, it can only lead to another reason, until it reaches an axiom or absolute truth statement or knowledge.
This is an epistemological issue...where is the limit to our knowing. One thing leads to another, but where does it end? I think the end of knowledge (not awareness) is when we have to make a leap of faith because we have run out of objective knowledge, and begin to construct reality in our own mind rather than simply accept that our 'box' is not big enough to know everything, and be humble enough to simply admit ignorance beyond a certain point.
Reason, the conditional, must stand upon the absolute - to move, to have a purpose
What absolutes? And why does anything have to have a purpose?
And absolutes cannot be known by reason - by definition, they have no "because". If they did they would be conditional, not absolute, and still you would sit
How do you know there are absolutes then? To assume that something preceded this existence doesn't mean it is an absolute. And if an absolute cannot be known by reason, by which means it is known?
I don't know, but without one we don't ask such questions - or get up in the morning.
How do you know there are absolutes then?
I know they are necessary to fully use reason/logic in determining human decisions. Without them, real or assumed, we have no place to begin our reasoning. We all, at the least, act as though they exist.
In absolute values, our choices are 1) Absolute values and truths exist and can be known 2) We can only take someone else's word they exist and we consciously choose some. 3) Unconsciously do 2, our actions illustrating which absolute values are true for us.
The alternative to all of these, if we are making all decisions on logic-reason is to be frozen in an endless road "why/because" ?
if an absolute cannot be known by reason, by which means it is known?
You are not frozen, you have purpose and values. So you know or act as though you know absolute truth/values. Find what these, maybe one, are - a simple exercise will work - and ask yourself the same question. I think this is the most useful answer.