I have always been interested in philosophical issues, even when I was a very small kid. I was interested in things like "Does God exist? Do we have free will?"
John Searle teaches philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began teaching in 1959. He has contributed to thinking about consciousness, language, artificial intelligence, and rationality.
Among his notable concepts is the "Chinese Room" thought experiment, which challenges the notion of a "strong" artificial intelligence. He has written extensively on the subjects of free will and consciousness.