  Zurek, Habib and Paz [W. H. Zurek, S. Habib and J. P. Paz, Phys. Rev. Lett.
{\bf 70} (1993)\ 1187] have characterized the set of states of maximal
stability defined as the set of states having minimum entropy increase due to
interaction with an environment, and shown that coherent states are maximal for
the particular environment model examined. To generalize these results, I
consider entropy production within the Lindblad theory of open systems,
treating environment effects perturbatively. I characterize the maximally
predicitive states which emerge from several forms of effective dynamics,
including decoherence from spatially correlated noise. Under a variety of
conditions, coherent states emerge as the maximal states.
