Here’s another, possibly more general, argument against subjective anticipation.

Consider the following thought experiment. You’re told that you will be copied once and then the two copies will be randomly labeled A and B. Copy A will be given a button with a choice: either push the button, in which case A will be tortured, or don’t push it, in which case copy B will be tortured instead, but for a longer period of time.

From your current perspective (before you’ve been copied), you would prefer that copy A push the button. But if A anticipates any subjective experiences, clearly it must anticipate that it would experience being tortured if and only if it were to push the button. Human nature is such that a copy of you would probably not push the button regardless of any arguments given here, but let’s put that aside and consider what ideal rationality says. I think it says that A should push the button, because to do otherwise would be to violate time consistency.

If we agree that the correct decision is to push the button, then to reach that decision A must (dis)value any copy of you being tortured the same as any other copy, and its subjective anticipation of experiencing torture ends up playing no role in the decision.

Eliezer wrote that we should make beliefs pay rent in anticipated experiences, and I think we should also make anticipation pay rent in correct decisions. It seems that is only possible under a limited set of circumstances (namely, with no mind copying).