Another Inane Puzzle by Wm Jaz ( ??? )

A strange symbiosis
December 27, 2011
by Wm Jas

Commentary & Analysis by Tiny Wanda

i didn’t give this too much thought when i read it The First & Second Times, But when i finally got around to more thoroughly reading it recently; i playfully attached an arbitrary Definition to Slugs & Shells, and as i continued to read through this essay; These Definitions seemed to hold fast 98% of The Time !
The Remaining 2% Seems to suggest an Alternative, and substantially more puerile Interpretation, best used for a Children’s book with large colorful illustrations.

A Slug is The Human Soul, Spirit or Ba Bird.
The Shell is The Human ( or Animal, or Plant ) Mortal Coil.
The Ultimate Question is; Why does The Slug Attach to The Shell?
If this Interpretation is Correct; Then my long standing explanation is (x. ( See Below )

Let me tell you about an organism I know of which has a very peculiar lifestyle. Actually, it is composed of two biologically distinct organisms, known as the Slug and the Shell, each with its own DNA and reproductive cycle. However, the Slug and the Shell are so closely bound together for most of their life cycle that it makes more sense to think of them as two parts of a single organismic system.

Of Course; The Naked Ba Bird doesn’t really have its own DNA, But it must have ( ? ) some Defining Principle which may or may not contribute to The Creation of new Ba Birds.
According to this interpretation; The Slug doesn’t really ‘need’ The Shell, And The Shell, Once Animated by The Slug; Acts fairly autonomously, Using it’s inherent Behavioural Programming to Stay Alive, Requiring The Slug to only, Very Rarely in many cases, Intervene in The Shells Behaviour to Achieve some Desired End or Avoid Danger.

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At first glance, it’s hard to see why a Slug needs a Shell at all. Slugs are complete, self-contained organisms in their own right and are quite capable of living and thriving alone, without being bonded to a Shell. In fact, because of their greater fecundity, Slugs greatly outnumber Shells, and at any given time most of the Slugs in the world are unbonded, living without Shells. However, unbonded Slugs do have one striking liability: an inability to reproduce. They produce gametes in great abundance but have no external genitalia and hence no way of releasing those gametes.

Exactly how, why or if Ba Birds Reproduce, According to Common Popular Beliefs, There are a Greater Number of Slugs than Shells. These Unattached Slugs are expressed in this World as either; Ghosts, Angels, Ball Lightning, Tornados, Clouds or Exist in The Realm of Dreams, which may be The ’True’ Reality.

Shells, on the other hand, are wholly dependent on Slugs and, except during pupation, are unable to live independently. While a Shell is a complete, living organism (not a lifeless mass of calcium carbonate, as the name might suggest), it is a seriously deficient one, with an incomplete digestive system (no mouth or anus) and no means of locomotion. Unlike a Slug, it does have a fully functional reproductive system, including external genitalia, but its inability to move around nevertheless makes reproduction a practical impossibility.

In this Description of How a Shell Operates; It might be compared to An Automobile; That although it has wheels and An Engine, without A Humanimal Driver, It is quite Inert.
What Wm Jas means by an Incomplete Digestive System ( ? ) : i assume that this refers to The Necessity of The Shell to obtain Spiritual Energy ( ? ) to Survive in The Mortal Realm. The Slug somehow processes this Spiritual Energy to sustain both itself & The Shell. The Shell also needs conventional Food, which being obtained by eating once living entities, maybe these corpses contain some of The Spiritual Energy that The Slug needs as well ( ??? )

A few days prior to hatching, Shell eggs produce a powerful pheromone that attracts unbonded Slugs, which will hang around waiting for the eggs to hatch so they can bond to the newborn Shells. (If no Slugs are attracted, or if the bonding is unsuccessful, the Shells usually die in a matter of hours.) When a Shell bonds with a Slug, it plugs into the Slug’s digestive system, siphoning some of the Slug’s food into its own stomach and then routing its own fecal matter back into the Slug’s digestive tract to be excreted. Because it is mostly immobile, the Shell uses relatively little of the Slug’s food, but it is nevertheless essentially a parasite at this stage in its life cycle, living off the Slug and giving it nothing in return. The Slug-Shell unit at this point in its development is known as a Protosnail.

When exactly The Shell ( Humanimal Robot ) becomes attached to The Slug ( Ba Bird ) is a curious question ( ! ) That Topic is subdivided endlessly with additional questions of why The Shells occasionally develop incorrectly and how much The Slug ( Ba Bird ) Contributes to The Shells Development, Along with Guiding Slugs ( OverSight Slugs or Angels ( Ξ.6 Controllers ) ) .
Why The Slug attaches to The Shell at this point is The Big Mystery.
Can Slugs survive indefinitely without Shells ?
Once a Slug becomes detached from it’s Shell, Is it required to find a New Shell to survive ? How long does it have to do this ?
The Word ProtoSnail suggests that this is an Intermediate Phase in The Slug/Shell Symbiotic Relationship.
Virtually All Religions share this view, believing that The Slug drops The Shell eventually, at which time (x happens.

When Protosnails reach maturity, they mate. However, while the Slug does all the work of finding a mate and fighting off other Protosnails, it is only the Shells that mate, only the Shells that lay eggs, and only the Shells’ DNA that is passed on — for what hatches from the egg is not a complete Protosnail but just a Shell, which must attract a new Slug of its own.

This adheres very closely to The Humanimal Robot interpretation; The Robots reproduce by Sexual Procreation, while The Ba Birds watch, and possibly direct some of The Operations. It is however; Apparently very common for The Robots to take over or Dominate This Mechanical Process.

Shortly after mating, the Shell disconnects from the Slug, drops off, and pupates. During the Shell’s pupal stage, the Slug once more lives independently. However, it stays in the general vicinity of the pupal Shell and will not bond with any other Shell during this time. During its Protosnail phase, the Shell has imprinted on its Slug’s DNA, and after pupation the adult Shell will bond only with that same Slug. And the Slug, as we shall see, has a very good reason for wanting to bond with its Shell again; such re-bonding is its only hope of getting any return on the investment it has made in its erstwhile parasite.

i’m not as confident in my interpretation after examining this passage? What is this About ( ??? )
It sounds slightly more familiar to The Behaviour of Slime Molds, But that interpretation is also deeply flawed.
Maybe Wm Jas means that The Shellette ( New Shell(s ) are separate from The Slug ( Robot’s Host Ba Bird ), and Staying in The General Vicinity means remaining attached to The Robot, or If he’s thinking of The Male’s Sperm; Then During this period. The Development of The New Shell is in fact completely independent, and The Father ‘Remains Faithful’ to The Shell Factory.
This Description would tend to support The Entirely Misogynistic Interpretation that The Slug is Simply The Male, And The Shell, The Female. ( !!! ) But this would mean that Wm Jaz thinks that The Females are Inert Robots, Paper Cutouts of Males that are The Only Autonomous, Conscious Entities. ( ? )

When the adult Shell emerges from its chrysalis, its Slug is generally there waiting for it, and they immediately bond again to form the final stage in their collective life cycle: the Permasnail.

According To The Secondary Interpretation; The PermaSnail is A Family Unit with Husband, Wife & Child.
According To The Primary Interpretation; The PermaSnail is A Self Actualized Slug that has come into being by some unspecified or uncertain mechanism(s ( ??? )

This time the bonding is much deeper and more pervasive, and it is irreversible. If the Protosnail is a bit like a hermit crab (albeit with a living shell), the Permasnail is more like lichen: functionally a single organism. However, the Slug and Shell components still retain their own separate DNA. Most importantly, from the Slug’s point of view, in the Permasnail the Shell’s external genitalia connect to the testes or ovaries of the Slug, finally allowing the Slug to reproduce its own kind.

This is a Sticky Bit.
Using The Secondary Interpretation; This would suggest that now that The Husband has started a Family; His ‘Consciousness’ ( The Only True & Important Element of This Symbiosis ) can now be ‘Passed Along’ to His Children by means of A Nurturing Process.
( Regretfully; There is a Very compelling Anthropological / Sociological School of Thought; That suggests that ‘Parenting’ has Virtually NO influence in The ‘Personality Development’ of Their Children ! )

When Permasnails mate, the eggs they lay hatch into Slugs, which grow to maturity and then start looking
around for Shells to bond to in order that they may move on to the next stage of their life cycle.

This last biddle requires a Third Interpretation; As what does Wm Jas means by allowing for A Family Unit to Mate ? Is he now considering The PermaSnail as a Societal Unit that Passes along A Societies Culture ?
The Slug then becomes a Social or Cultural Meme; And The Shell becomes The Technological Industry that makes houses and slaughters cattle for The Convenience of The Slugs.

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So what am I really talking about?
What is the real meaning of this zoological treatise à clef?
I’ll reveal the answer later, but first feel free to guess.

My guess is that Wm Jas is being as Obtuse as Usual with his Crazy Puzzles !!!

Two Additional Puzzles by Wm Jaz !!!

It's a Riddle !

Universe Man, Universe Man !