The symmetry of adaptation in predominantly asymmetrical contexts

There is symmetry of adaptation when one entity is adapted to a second and the second is adapted to the first. Symbionts are adapted to each other in this way. But there are other pairs that are adapted to each other. Plant species and habitat, phytoplankton and nutrient, predator and prey, ciliate and ingested chloroplasts are adapted to each other. Symbionts can be described as helping each other, and thus ‘helping’ is symmetrical. But ‘dominate’, ‘suppress’, ‘prey’, ‘enslave’, are not symmetrical. Thus species and habitat may be described as one dominating the other, or phytoplankton and nutrient described as one suppressing the other, or predator and prey described as one preying on the other, or ciliate and chloroplast as one enslaving the other. Where ‘x’ is one of these pairs and ‘y’ the other, if x and y help each other or x dominates y or x suppresses y or x preys on y or x enslaves y, then x and y are adapted to each other; and in reverse if x and y are adapted to each other, then surely x and y help each other or x dominates y, etc. The ‘adapted’ part and option (‘or’-connected) part form a logically valid whole when further rearranged. Two crucial aspects of this whole are (1): x and y are imagined, conceived to be the same throughout the optionality part in order to achieve validity but are confirmed by different entities in order to achieve contact with the real, external world; (2): the metalingual words ‘help’, ‘dominate’, ‘suppress’, ‘prey’, ‘enslave’ are involved at a level above the level directly descriptive of the observational data.