Not sure what that question means. An ocean wave is something that emerges from the basic laws of physics, but its not actually a "thing", its just a bunch of water exhibiting a property. The only difference between that and the human mind (and properties of it like consciousness) is the level of complexity and thus completeness of our ability to model it. The mind is a wave in an ocean of brain.

A 'bunch of water' and a 'wave' are both vague things. The declaration that one is a thing, and the other is not is disugenous. But let us suppose that what you meant is the water molecule is a thing..but is a water molecule more of a thing than a wave is a thing? I do not think so, for even if you speak of the individual atoms in a water molecule the atom is a collection of other parts, and nevertheless is fundamentally a wave-like distributed field. This insistence that one is a thing and the other simply an abstraction of the mind is hubris and artificial.

A wave is a thing. I think what the commenter meant consciousness is a property, like red is a property. Red is not a thing. Things can be red.

Ok, so by "not a thing" you mean "abstraction", rather than something which does not physically exist.

It's a philosophical question about when does something begin to exist vs. it is just an abstraction comprised of constituent parts.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/material-constitution

> if consciousness is only a property that doesn't influence the actual physics, then how are we even able to talk about consciousness?

We conscious beings can talk about consciousness because we can never understand how consciousness arises from the actual physics, and can't talk about that. By not being able to comprehend how physics and conscious minds interact, our minds can talk about each separately. Perhaps the same principle extends to various components of physics, such as General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics -- maybe our consciousnesses are incapable of conceiving of the math that unites them. After all, Mathematics is simply only a product of our conscious minds.