Claim. Because all created beings have dual characteristics (Sungsang and Hyungsang), every human action — including cognition — involves parallel psychological and physiological processes, with mental action arising through give-and-take between mind and brain rather than reducing to either one alone.
Elaboration. Lee deploys the dual-characteristics doctrine as a general metaphysical principle that constrains cognitive theory: ‘all things have dual characteristics, namely, Sungsang and Hyungsang, since they are created in the likeness of the dual characteristics of the Original Image. The human being is a dual being of mind and body; and cells, tissues, and organs making up the human body are united beings of mental and physical elements as well. Furthermore, all human actions and operations are dual — which means that psychological and physiological actions are always at work in parallel’ (Parallels between Psychological Processes and Physiological Processes).
The mechanism is give-and-take between mind and brain (not identity, not epiphenomenalism, not parallelism without interaction). Mind here is the union of spirit mind and physical mind. Lee enlists neuroscientific authorities to support the interactionist view: Wilder Penfield’s ‘the brain is a computer, and the mind is a programmer,’ and John C. Eccles’s insistence that mind and brain are different things that must be grasped as interacting. Lee claims these align with the Unification view.
The move is doing two pieces of work. First, it refutes Marxist materialism’s claim that consciousness is merely a product/function of the brain — Lee will argue that this cannot explain how passive reflection becomes active reasoning and revolutionary practice. Second, it provides a metaphysical framework for the later claim that protoconsciousness (mental) accompanies every nerve impulse (physical), so that information transmission in the nervous system always has a Sungsang and a Hyungsang aspect.
Lee makes the methodological claim explicit: ‘if any assertion of Unification epistemology turns out to be contradictory to established scientific theories, then it will stand as nothing more than an unsubstantiated claim… This section offers evidence to show that Unification epistemology is, in fact, a valid theory, and that it is supported by scientific knowledge.’ This is a strong falsifiability commitment — Lee stakes the theory on convergence with empirical neuroscience.
Critics typically engage on whether Penfield and Eccles (mid-20th century dualists, both heterodox by today’s neuroscientific mainstream) carry the evidential weight Lee assigns them, and whether the give-and-take metaphor adds anything beyond standard property dualism.
See also. ut-subject-object-necessary-relationship-grounds-cognition, ut-cognition-as-collation-not-reflection-or-synthesis, natural-law-corresponds-to-ethical-law