 One immediate problem was how to defend such a view against the empirical evidence then available. Consider, for example, something Czolbe was aware of: the presence of electrical currents in nerves. The worry for Czolbe is that light waves end up being converted to electrical currents in the nerves, which might lead back to the supposedly self-undermining empirical stories of the other materialists. Czolbe’s response is first to point out that it is possible that both electricity and light—not just light waves but the sensations of light—could be transmitted at the same time. He then points to supposed empirical data that at the moment of excitation the electrical current in the nerve weakens. This, he thinks, is decisive evidence that the electrical current is not responsible for transmission since if it were, the electrical current would have to increase at the moment of excitation rather than decrease (Czolbe 1855: 16–17).