It's not as much a thought experiment- it's rather difficult to think your way out of your head (though it has happened)
You can stretch the mind to its own barriers to the point where it essentially collapses, and these are the types of questions that can go there. It usually fails because instead of pushing beyond the barrier, the mind just argues and looks to find more evidence and convincing arguments for why its particular take on the matter is right.. again, because that is what it does. There are probably 10,000 word treatises out there on why no, it really is a ship, or no, it really isn't, which in the end accomplishes little.
This is much more about observation, with a shift in focus. Instead of "observing" oh here is this computer screen and this pen on my desk and this guy somewhere else in the world talking about some philosophical sounding bullshit on this forum I'm looking at.. which is about xyz, and has these types of people in it, and oh this girl walked past and her body language looked like this, which probably means this, and on and on. Instead you do your best to step backwards and actually observe the whole phenomenon taking place, that your mind is taking these shapes and giving them names and then creating stories around them based on memories. You may become immensely present. You have almost literally stepped 'out of your head' and are in direct experience and this is visceral and intense in a way that cant be expressed properly in words, because it can sound like it is just semantics.
Meraki has recommended at least one book (I think in response to you) that is almost entirely exercises like this.
If the idea of dis-identifying with conceptual thought and abstractions sounds strange to anyone, consider the dreamless sleep you enter each night.
What happens to you when you go even a DAY without that dreamless sleep?
Also you've already experienced that when you get more of that sleep, the mind actually gets better at what it does, not worse.
Perhaps that is a direct-experience relatable pointer to one of the implications of this. This is also a big key in phenomenon like yogi's who don't require sleep (this actually exists).