Von Neumann Probes as Virions - A Process Model of Engineered Life Extended to Astronomical Scales

Viruses present a rigorous process-based ontology of life in which the extracellular virion is not the living organism per se. The virion is a dispersal state which, when coupled in the intracellular phase, often formalised as the viral factory or virocell, actualises the realised replicator that performs metabolism-like throughput, growth, and reproduction by commandeering host resources. It has been previously highlighted that confusing virus with virion is categorically similar to confusing an organism with a gamete, and consequently there are minimal “organs” for viruses as a replicon plus capsid. However, with the living phase actualised during infection, the cell is transformed into a virus producing system. Here I map that ontology to engineered self-replication by treating a von Neumann probe as a virion analogue. Therefore a transport optimised package carrying an information string and entry interfaces becomes life-like only when it couples to an environment that supplies free energy and accessible material inventory, thereby instantiating a factory state that constructs progeny dispersal units. A mathematical framework is developed to map virion and virocell states to dispersal and factory states of self-replicating probes across a resource graph, constraining replication rates by power throughput and construction cost. The framework then quantifies life like complexity using Shannon entropy and information theory, Kolmogorov complexity, and Assembly Theory, which in this context becomes a technosignature criterion for probe ecologies. The Kardashev Scale concept is also applied as a continuous function of power, yielding a civilisation index that bounds probe replication fronts and observable waste heat signatures. Together, these elements offer a quantitative bridge between astrophysics technosignature, virology and theoretical computer science. By recasting self-replicating artefacts as life cycle constrained, information bounded factory dispersal systems, this framework makes their search a testable programme that can sharpen humanity's understanding of expansion, cooperation, and long horizon survival beyond Earthbound constraints.