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Although radiation was discovered in late 19th century, the dangers of radioactivity and of radiation were not immediately recognized. Acute effects of radiation were first observed in the use of X-rays when the Serbo-Croatian-American electric engineer Nikola Tesla intentionally subjected his fingers to X-rays in 1896. He published his observations concerning the burns that developed, though he attributed them to ozone rather than to X-rays. His injuries healed later.

The genetic effects of radiation, including the effects on cancer risk, were recognized much later. In 1927 Hermann Joseph Muller published research showing genetic effects, and in 1946 was awarded the Nobel prize for his findings.

Before the biological effects of radiation were known, many physicians and corporations had begun marketing radioactive substances as patent medicine and radioactive quackery. Examples were radium enema treatments, and radium-containing waters to be drunk as tonics. Marie Curie spoke out against this sort of treatment, warning that the effects of radiation on the human body were not well understood. Curie later died of aplastic anemia due to radiation poisoning. Eben Byers, a famous American socialite, died in 1932 after consuming large quantities of radium over several years; his death drew public attention to dangers of radiation. By the 1930s, after a number of cases of bone necrosis and death in enthusiasts, radium-containing medical products had nearly vanished from the market.

Nevertheless, dangers of radiation weren't fully appreciated by scientists until later. In 1945 and 1946, two U.S. scientists died from acute radiation exposure in separate criticality accidents. In both cases, victims were working with large quantities of fissile materials without any shielding or protection.

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in a large number of incidents of radiation poisoning, allowing for greater insight into its symptoms and dangers.
 
Descartes employs the Cogito Argument, or, “I think, therefore I am.” Essentially, this means that by the act of thinking, you prove your existence. By saying, “I exist,” you’re proving that you exist, because if you didn’t, how would you have said it? Cogito works in the same way, except utilizing thought rather than the voice. Descartes takes this to mean that at the core, he is the only thing in existence he can be sure of, and that everything else in the physical world, including his body, could be the work of an evil demon, trying to trick him.
 
In his Meditation 6, Descartes proposes that the human being in made up of two parts: the mental, which has no existence in the physical universe, and the physical, which is incapable of thought. Descartes reaches this conclusion by observing that, while the physical human is easily describable, with objects like the heart, skin, hair, and eyes, the mental component of man is nearly impossible to explain, consisting of nonphysical concepts like emotion and thought, and thus the two must be separate.
 
According to Descartes, the two parts of the human are constantly interacting, to the point of being joined in a symbiotic relationship. If a man is hit by something, he will feel pain and, depending on the source, anger, if he’d in a bad mood he may experience physical symptoms such as a stomach ache, and thus the physical and nonphysical coexist as one being.
 
There are, of course, problems with Descartes’ theory that are quite apparent to readers. Because of how we understand the mind to work (as a physical organ) the assumption of the conscious self existing outside of the body seems unnecessary, and thus Occam’s Razor would cut it down. Also, where did the nonphysical mind come from? At what point did humans develop it? Humans have evolved from simpler creatures, at what point in the evolutionary process did the nonphysical mind evolve, and at what point in individual human growth does the nonphysical mind become active? It’s obvious where the physical body comes from (conception) but there’s no readily apparent answer for the nonphysical.
 
In his The Nature of Mind, Armstrong attempts to formulate a theory of behavioralism while avoiding the problems that behavioralist theories of the mind usually bring up. The main problem that Armstrong avoids is the issue raised by Ryle’s theory of the mind: A man can think something without acting on it in any observable way, and it is obvious that something is happening within him to formulate and cause the thought. Armstrong theorizes that the man, upon having a thought, isn’t necessarily going to execute any behavior, nor is he necessarily going to act in a certain way if the correct stimulus is introduced. The mental state is, in itself, not necessarily a behavior.
 
Armstrong’s theory, then, is that mental states are causally linked to dispositions to behave in a certain way in response to various circumstances, rather than synonymous with behaviors themselves.
 
The Nature of Mind addresses the issue raised by the first person perspective – in our own consciousnesses, we are aware of perception, beliefs, and thoughts, by saying that the human consciousness is merely an internal sense, allowing us to scan our central nervous systems. This inner self-scanning sense, the consciousness, then allows us to make statements about things like emotions, beliefs, and perceptions, which are simply our ways of expressing our behaviors.
 
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Jackson’s thought experiment, What Mary Didn’t Know, is an attack on physicalist accounts of the mind. In his thought experiment, Jackson introduces Mary, a woman who has lived her life in a black and white room, learns everything there is to know about the physical nature of the world through a black and white television and lectures. Thus, if physicalism is true, Mary knows everything there is to know about the world. When Mary is let out of the room, she will have the experience of seeing colors, for example red, for the first time, and she will learn what seeing red is like. This will be a new experience for her, hence a learning experience, and that would’ve been impossible if she had indeed learned everything there was to know in the black and white room. If there was something to learn outside of the room, as there clearly was, physicalism must be false.
 
Even if Mary had been able to imagine seeing the color red, she wouldn’t have been able to imagine what it would be like to sense red, and indeed, Jackson, continues, even resorting to imagination implies a lack of knowledge. Indeed, if Mary lacks any knowledge, physicalism must be false. Mary did have all of the physical knowledge there was about the color red, what seeing it does to the brain, how it’s processed; indeed, everything imaginable in the physical realm of knowledge, yet she still gained something, which then, must be non-physical, so not everything is physical, and physicalism is disproven.
 
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