Counterfactual scenario Sample Clauses

Counterfactual scenario. ‌ Something that is difficult to extract from the analysis of single incidents is the effect of various conditions. Sometimes relevant conditions can be concluded as important based on e.g. previous experiences of those involved. But in order to make such inferences it is typically necessary to have similar incidents to compare with, which often is not the case. An alternative approach would be to apply some hypothetical/counterfactual reasoning where one assumes that some other conditions would prevail and then reason about how that would have changed the impacts and the cascading effects. In that way, conclusions regarding the effects of various conditions can be drawn. Of course, these conclusions will be strongly dependent on the knowledge of those persons making the judgements. Counterfactual thinking is something most people do; most of us have had thoughts of the following kind: “If I had done this instead of that, then this would have happened instead”. A counterfactual thought is often defined as mental representations that are explicitly contrary to facts or beliefs and are often formulated as conditional statements (Xxxxx & Xxxxxxxx, 2009). These statements are usually divided into an antecedent (“If I had done this”) and a consequent (“then this would have happened”). The more formal analytical method referred to as Counterfactual reasoning is closely related to counterfactual thinking, which constructs alternative scenarios using counterfactual events, usually in order to provide input to decision making. It can be used both retroactively, thus changing historical facts or adding new ones, or proactively, making an assessment of the future. In Xxxxxxxxxxx et al. (2010), counterfactual reasoning is used to study the effects of changing conditions and system states in the emergency response to a past event. This is done with the purpose of broadening the learning potential from past events. The purpose in applying counterfactual reasoning in the CascEff-project would be similar, but with the focus on better understanding ways that changing conditions would alter the cascading effects. According to Xxxxxxxxxxx (2008), all counterfactual reasoning should start with creating an antecedent scenario, which he describes as a precisely formulated series of events that makes the antecedent true. Using the example “If the green party wins the election, the coal power plants would be forced to close”, an antecedent scenario consists of all the events and ...