Consider the following two sentences:
(1) Alex’s train left 2 minutes before they arrived at the platform.
(2) If Alex had arrived at the platform 10 minutes earlier, then they probably would have caught their train.
Is the counterfactual in sentence 2 true or false, or can’t you tell because you didn’t run an RCT?
I reckoned that the counterfactual is true. I reasoned that Alex probably missed the train because they were late, so turning up earlier would have fixed that.
I could think of other possible outcomes, but they became increasingly contrived and far from the (albeit minimal) evidence provided. For instance, it is conceivable that if Alex arrived earlier, they would have believed they had time to pop to Pret for a coffee – and missed the train again.