# Structural and Symbolic Information in the Context of the General Theory of Information
## 2 Basic Postulates of the General Theory of Information (GTI)  
The general theory of information (GTI) has been constructed by [PERSON] utilizing the basic postulates of information theory and information technology [18; 22; 23]. These postulates are presented in the form of principles. They allow to achieve the comprehensive definition of information as a foremost phenomenon in the world, to discern information, information representation and information carrier and to efficiently study information measures, processes, and systems by means of mathematical models and experiments (cf. for example, [19; 20; 21]). **Ontological Principle O1 (the _Locality Principle_). ** It is necessary to separate information, in general, from information (or a portion of information) for a system \(R\). In other words, empirically, it is possible to speak only about information (or a portion of information) for a system. This principle separates local and global approaches to information definition, i.e., in what context information is defined. Here a portion of information means information that can be constructively or analytically separated from other information although relations and connections to usually exist. The Locality Principle explicates an important property of information, but says nothing of what information is. The essence of information is described by the second ontological principle, which has several forms. Ontological Principle O1 does not necessarily imply that the \"system\" under consideration is a physical system, somehow localized in space, exchanging information with other systems \"out there\". The \"system\" may as well be a mathematical or philosophical construct, such as an abstract automaton or a learning matrix, that exists \"beyond space and time\" in a sense that for its functioning, physical coordinates of the system's elements are irrelevant, unspecified aspects. However, in the interplay between structural and symbolic information, we shall focus here on systems that physically exist in space and time, at least as thought experiments. **Ontological Principle O2 (the _General Transformation Principle_). ** In a broad sense, _information_ for a system \(R\) is a capacity to cause changes in the system \(R\). Thus, we may understand information in a broad sense as a capacity (ability or potency) of things, both material and abstract, to change other things. Information exists in the form of _portions of information_. Ontological Principle O2 is fundamental as it intimately links information with time. Changes to \(R\), when they occur by reception of information, are defined here to be the result of a causal process. Causality necessarily implies that the related effect happens strictly after its cause, if observed from any physically possible reference frame in the sense of [PERSON]'s special theory of relativity. Ontological Principle O2 leaves open the question of whether the potential causal changes may or must be irreversible. For example, revealing a secret to somebody \(R\) has the capacity to change \(R\), and if so, this change is irreversible for the impossibility to take back the secret. However, the common usage of the word _information_ does not imply such wide generalizations as Ontological Principle O2 implies. Thus, we need a more restricted theoretical meaning because an adequate theory, whether of the information or of anything else, must be in significant accord with our common ways of thinking and talking about what the theory is about, else there is the danger that theory is not about what it purports to be about. To achieve this goal, we use the concept of an _infological system_ IF(\(R\)) of the system \(R\) for the information definition. Elements from IF(\(R\)) are called _infological elements_. The exact definition consists of two steps. At first, we make the concept of information relative and then we choose a specific class of infological systems to specify information in the strict sense.