What I mean by preference is a valuation of how I want the world to be. It's not about cognitive ritual, although cognitive ritual, as a part of the world, may also be mentioned there. Preference is not the sort of thing that does anything, it is a statement of what I think should be done. Through the activity of the mind, the way preference is may influence other things, and conversely, other things may influence preference, as in the case of wireheading, for example.

I don't understand what you mean by "cognitive ritual".

A particular algorithm, or a property thereof, that your mind currently runs. For example, a cognitive ritual of following causal decision theory to determine your actions may result in two-boxing in Newcomb's problem.

(I'm going to break the response down, to make shorter and more focused comments.)