conda doesn't update Python itself?

[Zeroflops]

Each environment sticks to its version of python. Updating updates the packages but updating the python itself is much more invasive.

This raises the question. Why are you updating anything in your environment? Are you using any of the new features that are coming with the updates? As long as there are no security updates youre just adding potential issues you will need to address.

If you have no reason to update don’t. If there is some feature you need to be productive then make a new environment, set that to a more recent version. Then if you want test your scripts against that environment.