Persistent damage comes from effects like acid or burning and appears as “X persistent [type] damage,” where the “X” is the amount of damage dealt and “[type]” is the damage type. While affected by persistent damage, at the end of your turn you take the specified amount and type of damage, after which you can attempt a DC 20 flat check to remove the persistent damage. You roll the damage dice anew each time you take the persistent damage. Immunities, resistances, and weaknesses all apply to persistent damage. If an effect deals damage immediately and also deals persistent damage, you don’t take the persistent damage if you negate the other damage. For example, an attack that deals slashing damage and persistent bleed damage wouldn’t deal the persistent bleed damage if you blocked all of the slashing damage.
You can be simultaneously affected by multiple persistent damage conditions so long as they have different damage types. If you would gain more than one persistent damage condition with the same damage type, the higher amount of damage overrides the lower amount. All types of persistent damage occur at once, so if something triggers when you take damage, it triggers only one time.
As I read the second bolded part, if you're suffering 1d4 persistent fire damage and someone inflicts 1d6 persistent fire damage on you, you're now suffering 1d6 persistent fire damage, not 1d6 PFD + 1d4 PFD or anything like that. But that's because 1d6 is clearly greater than 1d4. What if the two PFDs are 1d6 and 1d4+1, or 2d4 and 1d8? Which one wins?
Or do you perhaps keep track of the 1d6 and the 1d4 PFD in my first example after all, and roll each of them each round and suffer the higher damage? That would be unambiguous, but if so then the second bolded part above needs rewriting, as it seemingly flat-out contradicts that interpretation. This would also make persistent damage considerably stronger, as you could re-inflict the same effect enough times that the victim would be almost sure to take the max possible each round.
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Multiple sources of persistent damage should stack regardless of type, as separate sources. If I get hit for 1d6 bleed in one part of my body and then 1d6 bleed in another part of my body, it's not like the first wound suddenly stops bleeding, nor does each wound suddenly have half the blood pressure to it. Stumbling from flame jet into flame jet into flame jet could logically turn my entire surface into a conflagration instead of just my arm or whatever.