"Software engineering is the distilling of ambiguity"
I hope he meant separating out the ambiguity rather than concentrating it. :)
I can see it working both ways - in many cases, I'd like my ambiguity distilled down to one specific point, while the rest of the project deals with lower specific ambiguity (where ambiguity in my mind is equal to "is this thing possible").
I think about that whenever I get frustrated about a vague spec or lack of details. It's the job!