Response to Italo Calvino's, "Visibility"

Dante and Thomas Aquinas argue that a more spiritual, higher being such as God is imposing messages that our subconscious takes in and then translates and reflects through high fantasy style thinking. This is the type of thinking used to create dreams, which he claims is altogether distinct from imagining anything consciously through a sort of "corporeal imagination" (Page 81-82). I do not agree with this logic. I think that if I we are to imagine a scene or scenario in our minds consciously, it is because we have already or are actively, drawing from experiences and observations that we have made. In the case of high fantasy dream thought, I believe that it is fueled entirely by the subconscious, unless the individual is lucid dreaming.
Saint Ignatius de Loyola suggests that one must understand scripture first and then they may view the images of holy figures as the church created them to look, so that the viewer does not use their own imagination to conjure up a different image (Page 86). The author, Italo Calvino, then asserts that the process that Loyola describes, hearing and then eventually seeing the image, allows for a lot of time to imagine other scenarios and images in the middle. The author makes a valid point, and I believe that if the church wanted there to be only one image associated with representing the trinity, or any holy person, then they should show that before teaching the scriptures. Loyola posits that we actively make "mental movies" in our minds, but why not create a character's image first and then add the personality and plot? It would probably be a lot more effective.
I do not agree with the point made on page 87 that there is a sort of transcendence of imagery to the mind. I think that the brain is simply too complex for us to understand in its entirety at the technological level, which our society and world is currently situated. Dreams and seemingly random, complex thought must be attributed to some scientific explanation about cognition. This meta-cognition is simply too advanced for us to understand yet. So, while I do not believe cognition to be spiritually based at the moment, if it is never proven to be biologically based, then I would see no reason for the spiritual arguments made to be implausible anymore.