I did not assume that cloning would smear the sense of self, though if somehow it were possible to instantaneously copy a brain while conscious that would be an implied. However I started from the idea of brains being frozen and no consciousness existing during the copy process. The temporal smear idea is introduced merely to point out that we can’t avoid the idea of a self as experiencer even if we don’t reify that self. So the question remains - if the evil scientists are going to torture a copy of you, are you afraid? This is the key question and I see no way to avoid concluding that I should be, that whatever happens to a copy of me happens to me.