Li was born in February 1924 in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, Republic of China, with his ancestral home in Lingling, Hunan.
[1] He was the only son of Li Da, a Marxist philosopher and co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party, and his wife Wang Huiwu.
[2] His parents moved frequently, and he spent his childhood in various cities including Changsha, Wuchang, Shanghai, and Beijing.
Li's family became war refugees and fled across half of China to Guilin and later Guiyang, where his older sister fell ill and died in 1938.
[1] His research on the coordination of cerebral hemispheres won multiple national and regional awards.