Ian Crisp wrote:

>Bernard Chasan:
>
>>All true, but it is also true that we still respond to the music.
>>Conclusion: we have not changed so much that the music no longer speaks
>>to us, just as Shakespeare still speaks to us.
>
>Neither I nor anyone else has suggested that "the music no longer speaks
>to us" - only that we cannot know fully how it once spoke to others, and
>we cannot reduplicate that experience for ourselves.  Because although
>there may be much in common between us and them, there is also a great
>difference.  Time, and all the things that have happened during its
>passing.

We're getting very close to the old chestnut involving what my experiences
say compared to yours -- when you see the color 'orange' and I see the
color 'orange' are we seeing the same thing? If it were possible for me to
see exactly what you saw and vice versa would we be seeing the same thing?
Or would my 'orange' be 'blue' to you, or polka dots or whatever.

There is a point past which I believe things are unknowable.  Internal
experiences at some point are personal in the most final sense of the term.

Bill S