Controlled Irrationality Index (CII): Rationality as an Activation Event (Working Paper v1.1 – Canonical Definition Release)

This paper reconceptualizes rationality as an activation event rather than a continuous cognitive state. Most human behavior unfolds automatically through affect-guided and habitual routines; deliberation appears only when these routines are interrupted and reorganized.Building on the Controlled Irrationality (CI) framework, we introduce the Controlled Irrationality Index (CII), a metric that captures the frequency, reliability, and temporal-semantic depth of activation events observable in behavioral data such as Wikipedia and GitHub.CII₁–₂ measure pause-and-revision frequency and success; CII₃–₄ extend the framework to delay and intensity dimensions, enabling multi-domain quantification of control responsiveness.Extending this logic to human–AI systems, the paper demonstrates that rationality emerges whenever systems—human or artificial—interrupt their default operations to restore coherence. This completes the conceptual arc from bounded to controlled to activated rationality.