Is there any value whatsoever to having a cake and not eating it? Let us define "having the cake", as being in possession of the cake. The primary function of the cake is to be eaten, so to have a cake and not eat it would seem to render the cake worthless, at least to us. So we could sell the cake. Obviously we could only sell it to somebody who could both have and eat a cake, otherwise it would be worthless to them as well. But what if they discovered that we cannot eat the cake? They would infer that it is worth very little capital to us, perhaps none, and they could force us down to giving it to them for free. That is, if the cake is worth absolutely nothing to us. A cake does have other functions other than being eaten. You can use them as comedy weapons to make others filthy, or use one as a door-stopper until it starts decomposing, or use one like this [NSFW]. Or maybe you could break it down and make something else out of its components. Depending on our theory of identity over time, we could argue that THE cake has ceased to exist and in its wake has appeared a cake-like biscuit. Does "eating the cake" mean eating the entire cake, or eating from the cake? If the former then we could eat all but a few atoms of the cake, and we wouldn't have eaten the whole cake. Presumably nobody has ever eaten a cake if that is true, because there are always microscopic crumbs left on their shirt or hands. Or rather, they have eaten cakes, but not the same cakes that they bought. The cake they bought was composed of parts C1-C10000000000000, and the cake that they ate was composed of parts C1-C9999999999999, and therefore a different cake to the former. Of course the former cake no longer exists, but it wasn't eaten which is the important thing. What happened to it then? Well, it was dissected into lots of smaller cakes, and part C10000000000000, and each of those smaller cakes were eaten. Even if we adopt a perdurance theory of identity then the cake still exists after most of its components were eaten, and yet the whole cake has not been eaten. The same cake is now located in two places, mostly in somebody's stomach and wherever C999999999999 is, on the shelf, sleeve or in the hoover. So being in possession of a cake and not being able to eat it is virtually identical to being in possession of a cake and being able to eat it.

Perhaps we have now discovered the truth in the otherwise stupid idiom that "you can't have your cake and eat it". The cake is logically edible, but it's not very easily physically edible.