Umm.... I think I understand why I went into Econ and not Physics ;)
That pretty much went right over my head.
“However, since an observer at distance cannot know the state of our “nearby” photon (which is remote from his point of view) without exchanging state descriptions with us, there is actually no information being transmitted until an ordinary radio transmission (or pony express rider, or some other conventional information process) actually verifies the content. Roughly, the particles “know” they have been changed (”spooky action at a distance,” in Einstein’s words) but this knowledge cannot do anyone any good until ordinary messages can be exchanged. “
How do particles “know” if they are not sentient?
It’s just an analogy. They are not self-aware. It’s just a shorthand for saying that the the wave function of the entangled system is changed. This has effects within the system which cannot be observed until a subsequent experiment is done.