The friend who introduced me to Gibson was also lyrical about the jet lag passage, but I remember thinking that traveling North-South would be a counter example. Anyway, it is well written.
I suspect there's a deep bifurcation between people who are intrigued by mystery (e.g. new language) and people who are made uncomfortable by it.
When it's done right though, it strikes that good mystery novel tone for me: enough detail and context to be tantalizing and whet the intellectual appetite, but not so little or so much as to break disbelief or flow.
Science fiction feels very similar. If you read the earliest stuff (including subgenres like cyberpunk), you get authors who were looking to go beyond. Later, you get a mix of them and trend writers.
To me the thing that he does well is break down where understanding comes from: (1) pre-context, (2) "literary naturalism" (great phrase!), (3) context, & (4) post-context.
Sometimes, it's not critical that a reader understands 100% of a concept exactly where it's introduced, and by establishing less than that, tension can be created.
I guess it's treating your reader as another character in your writing, and understanding that just as your in-fiction characters have different levels of understanding at various times in the plot, so can your reader.
Personally, it feels very satisfying when a piece of understanding clicks into place later, and I hit 100% on (insert new concept here).
Just a great phrase describing a key development stage of the western novel, nothing special or anything :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(literature)
Maybe it gets better half way into the book?
The New Wave in the 70s consciously broke with the past by (among other efforts) eschewing neologisms, but writers (and editors) in other periods/subgenres have, generally, gone for a balanced approach.
The opposite of Andy Weir's The Martian, which is the best technical manual I've ever read about potatoes.