Hi guys, I really need your help! This question is addressed especially to those familiar with Gazzaniga's work. I have recently re-listened Gazzaniga's ''Whose in charge?'' and to be honest, I don't know how to interpret it. I listened to the book for the first time in 2015, and what I understood then was the following:
1. ''We are determined, yet free..." - our brain is indeed a determined machine, but it is determined by the physical laws that we have no control over, and our strongly emergent minds. We don't identify with the laws of physics, but we do identify with our minds, so there's freedom.
2. ''... and responsible'' - in the author's view, the responsibility arises only when human interact with each other. So here comes the second strong emergent layer that brings with it the responsibility. I am not going to go deep into this issue, even if I don't agree with this idea (I truly believe there is personal responsibility, e.g. eating less in order to stay in shape).
Long story short, he uses the concept of strong emergence in order to account for freedom and responsibility, even if he considers everything being determined. This is a compatibilistic view, and the main idea is that we really play a role in the chain of causes.

But after the second listening, I am not so sure he actually means that. I've also read some of his opinions online, and for me, his view is a bit confusing.
So everything goes well with the concept of strong emergence and how our consciousness constrains our brain in downward causation. But then he makes a sudden move, trying to dismiss the old idea of free will, in which a unitary entity pulls all the strings, so he introduces the Interpreter, an entity located in the left hemisphere, which role is to make us believe that there's a unitary ''I" who decided, when in fact all our decisions are taken by the unconscious brain. Well, from this moment, things get a bit contradictory, because he basically endorses an epiphenomenalistic view. One may argue that he just wanted just to show that the unity of the mind is an illusion created by the Interpreter, whose only role is to provide us with explanations for our actions. He gives examples of split-brain patients justifying their decisions by confabulating, when in fact their choices were taken by the brain mechanisms. So doesn't this mean we're lying to ourselves? When I always choose vanilla instead of chocolate, I do this because I like it, or because my brain made me do it and my Interpreter lies to me saying I choose because I like? Gazzaniga is not clear about that, and that smells like epiphenomenalism.
He actually does not dismiss that, and he jumps directly to the idea that being just a mechanism is not important, because what really saves us is the interaction between people. And I was like ''Wait... what!?! Have you forgotten about the mind? I thought that made us free". It was like he simply threw it out of the window after he used it in the first part of the book.

So after the second listening, I am confused because it looks like he endorses epiphenomenalism, completely throwing the mind out of the decision process, but he oddly saves the freedom and responsibility in the interaction between us.
So why bother explaining about the mind's emergence and downward causation if it doesn't play a role? Why not just say we are robots, but the interaction between us makes us humans? How come we're responsible if our brains make mechanical decisions? It doesn't look like a compatibilistic view, but more like a contradiction.

So was my first view of the book the correct one, or the guy is just simply confused?