Is there a way to determine what layers are selected in the active maps contents pane using arcpy for ArcGIS pro? Note that I don't want the layers with selected features which is what is used in the "How To" post https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/how-to-list-selected-layers-from-an-arcgis-pro-map-usi...
I have also spent a lot of time trying to figure out if this is possible, and did not find a definitive answer but am leaning to the conclusion that is not. AS (artificial stupidity) only comes up with selected features as you have discovered. The closest answer I found is that the python API is designed to work with any .aprx project whether or not it is the currently running project, and selected layers are not persisted in the .aprx.
It IS possible with the .net API, but that's a bigger level of effort to go down that road...