BYU-Hawaii History Associate Professor Dr. James B. Tueller created a classroom atmosphere in the Cannon Activities Center on September 14 as he explored aspects of ambiguity in university education during the annual faculty convocation.
Before Tueller spoke, College of Arts & Sciences Dean Jeff Burroughs explained convocations are an academic tradition "to stimulate discussion and to inaugurate the school year, [with] faculty members wearing their academic regalia in a celebration of academics."
Tueller used a unique, short video — Syrinx by Fine Arts Professor Dr. Daniel Bradshaw, that combines x-rays of birds with their computer-manipulated sounds — to stimulate the discussion he encouraged among the faculty and students in the audience and incorporated into the convocation.
"What did you just see? What did you hear?" Tueller asked, adding that Bradford's program notes described his video creation as "an analogy in light to what I had been doing in sound — looking past the exterior and using a technology to reveal what a sound may hold beneath the surface."
"Today, our theme is about ambiguity, so your discussion, your interest, your repulsion maybe, turned toward an experimental piece of music that may be ambiguous," he said. "Syrinx challenges us to learn more."
Tueller told the audience the first time he watched the video he went to the library and found that in addition to a bird's vocal instruments, syrinx also refers to a human spinal malformation, a 1913 Debussy musical composition, and Pan pipes — or more specifically, the river reeds the mythological character used to make music.
"If you had a discussion with Brother Bradshaw [about what] Syrinx means, [you'd find that] it's certainly about birds, but it could be about Pan, about Greek myths," Tueller continued. "There are so many possibilities in research and education. Recognizing beauty and gaining understanding are some of the purposes of education."
He told of asking other faculty members what role ambiguity played in their disciplines, and came up with several intriguing responses. For example, Dr. Lynne Hansen noted that while all natural languages are riddled with ambiguity, which especially presents "a stumbling block to machine translation and other linguistic analyses done by computers, people barely notice the presence of ambiguity in everyday communication, effortlessly filtering out numerous other interpretations of a sentence. How we are able to do this is a question that probes the very core of intelligence."
Professor Kevin Kimball pointed out that "with uncertainty in accounting, a moral choice emerges"; and Dr. Daren Heaton in biochemistry said, "the uncertainty of science lies in testing theories, eliminating wrong answers, accounting for human error and working with limited tools."
Tueller said while certainty and clarity are good things, "I urge us to value better things: Patience, wisdom, love and trust in God's mysterious ways. Our lives, our learning, our thinking are bound by our time and place. We inevitably face confusion between our limitations and God's purposes."
"God's perfection, in my mind, includes an eternal perspective. When we are confronted with a collision of sacred and secular, what do we do?" he asked. "I believe we have a chance to learn."
"Many stop at plain ambiguity, trying to look at value; but when we say we cannot know, the issue is intractably diverse. There are many possible meanings that limit us. Let's be ambiguous," he continued, "but let's look for an eternal perspective."
"The gospel of Jesus Christ shapes that eternal perspective. As eternal learners we move from dogmatism through healthy skepticism toward a balanced maturity that can tolerate ambiguity without losing the capacity for deep commitment."
"By example as well as precept, we should teach and live, asking good — even searching — questions; but also [we should teach] how to trust, how to know ourselves. When learning new and disturbing ideas, we can also count it as a testimonial about God's plan. Indeed, the real crime — the one we stand in greatest danger of — would be to leave our students' testimonies, our own testimonies, intact and untouched," Tueller said. "Surely a testimony — like education, freedom, creativity — is self-creative, is inwardly dynamic and alive, and is something to be invested like Christ's talents."
Then, after asking the audience to discuss the relation between ambiguity and faith, Tueller said he hoped such discussion and thoughts "would leave you interested in continuing to learn, to find where your uncertainties are, and explore that."
"I urge you to look for greater learning, and one way to do that, at least for myself, is to search for beauty," he said. "I hope that in looking for beauty, you also answer and understand ambiguity. Look for multiple connections — ways in which you can see beyond today and hope for connections in the future. They will come."
"What did you learn today?" Tueller asked in closing, then replied: "Do ask more about ambiguity. Learn about those things that are uncertain. I really think that when we look to the future, we should see hope."