What's the difference between existing and living?

Question

Doesn't both mean the same?

thanks for the answers.

Answer 1

In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, but in philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, and is often contrasted with essence. Philosophers investigate questions such as "What exists?" "How do we know?" "To what extent are the senses a reliable guide to existence?" "What is the meaning, if any, of assertions of the existence of categories, ideas, and abstractions."

Life is a condition that distinguishes organisms from non-living objects, such as non-life, and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism and reproduction. Some living things can communicate and many can adapt to their environment through changes originating internally. A physical characteristic of life is that it feeds on negative entropy.[1][2] In more detail, according to physicists such as John Bernal, Erwin Schrödinger, Eugene Wigner, and John Avery, life is a member of the class of phenomena which are open or continuous systems able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or free energy taken in from the environment and subsequently rejected in a degraded form (see: entropy and life).[3][4]

Answer 2

Existing is more the people who do not believe in God....living are those who do believe in God......from the very beginning God's plan has been to make you like His son, Jesus. This is your destiny and the purpose of your life.

Read The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and you will understand the difference between living and existing.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Existing is the mere means of putting off death or surviving day in and day out.  Living, on the other hand, is putting forth a constructive effort into improving the quality of one's life, which in turn also improves its quantity.

Answer 4

something doesn't have to be living to exist.

Answer 5

It depends on the liver.

Answer 6

All depends upon one's point of view.

Answer 7

All living things exist. Not all existing things are alive.

Answer 8

Perhaps the determining factor between merely existing and actually living may be in one awareness of being.

Be well.

Answer 9

no. they dont mean the same. for me, existing is like being present, or being visible to everyone, they see and notice you yet you dont leave a mark. but living is not merely being visible, whether you are noticed or not, if you are living then you would leave a legacy here on earth. you make the best of what you have. do good deeds and all that. thats the difference.

Answer 10

To me existing is just surviving, living has some enjoyment to it.

Answer 11

no difference between the two.

Answer 12

Living is like being physicaly alive (able to move your body) where as a rock just exists because no matter what happens it will never grow move react or think, all living things grow physicaly in some way.........

Answer 13

I think these two words have equivalences to "Content vs. Happy."  When someone is content, they have accepted the reality of their life, where as truly being happy on the inside is SO DIFFERENT.  

So, the difference between existing and living, is the action in it!  If you are just existing in this world, you are not grabbing your life by the horns and jumping in to experience all of the wonderful knowledge and people that you would have access to.  But when you LIVE, you enjoy your life, you love meeting new people, and you thrive on knowledge that enhances who you are.  Living is a way of taking action to make the most out of your day, and your life in general.  

Thanks for reading!