📄 97 — Counterfactual Reasoning
Definition
Thinking about what would happen if circumstances were different (“what if” scenarios).
When to Use
• Strategy • Learning from mistakes • Planning • Risk analysis • Innovation
How It Improves Reasoning
It reveals causal relationships and alternative paths.
Steps
- Identify the event.
- Change one variable.
- Analyze the new outcome.
- Compare with reality.
Example
“What if we had launched the product 3 months earlier?”
Prompts
• “Generate counterfactual scenarios.” • “How would outcomes change if this variable changed?”