The laws of physics are simple representations that can be interrogated to provide information about more complex scenarios. Imagine setting a pendulum in motion and asking where the base of the pendulum will be at some point in the future. One way to answer this is by measuring the position of the pendulum as it swings. This data can then be used as a kind of look-up table to find the answer. But the laws of motion provide a much easier way of discovering the answer: simply plug values for the various variables into the appropriate equation. That gives the correct answer too. That's why the equation can be thought of as a compressed representation of reality.
