When you die, do you just die?

The claim under examination: consciousness is nothing more than the brain, so when the brain dies, the person is gone for good.

Standard · preponderance of the evidence, not proof

◆ The case for

Change the brain, change the mind. Stroke, injury, and anesthesia alter or switch off awareness. The link is undeniable.
Simplicity. We know the brain exists. Adding an unseen soul is an extra assumption the evidence has to earn.
It starts with what we can see. People die, bodies stop, and nobody has produced a soul in a jar.

◇ The case against

Dependence is not identity. That the mind depends on the brain in life does not prove the mind is only the brain.
The hard problem. Why physical activity is accompanied by inner experience at all is still unexplained.
The final step is an inference, not an observation. "Consciousness cannot exist without this brain" goes beyond what we can watch happen.

The verdict

DisprovenUnlikelyPlausibleStrongly supportedEstablished

Brain dependence during ordinary life is strongly supported. The further claim that death certainly ends all consciousness is plausible, but not established by the evidence here.

If you read nothing else

We have not earned the word certainly.

Materialism explains one thing very well: our conscious life is deeply tied to the brain. Any theory of a soul has to account for that. But dependence is not the same as identity, and near-death research has not shown a mind working apart from the brain. Death may be the end. It has not been shown to be.