Can I use paginate_links() to add a pagination list, yet prevent it from inserting links?

There are three types of outputs you can get from paginate_links(), but all of them are going to have <a> inside of them.

I think an easy solution would be to use PHP to just strip out the <a> tag for you. Rather than echoing back paginate_links(), store that in a variable and then use preg_replace() to take out the anchors and echo that back:

$pagination_link_output = paginate_links(array(  
    'base'      => get_pagenum_link(1) . '%_%',  
    'format'    => 'page/%#%/',  
    'current'   => $current_page,  
    'total'     => $total_pages,  
    'prev_next' => false,  
    'type'      => 'list',  
));  

echo preg_replace('#<a.*?>([^>]*)</a>#i', '$1', $pagination_link_output);

You can also filter if you wanted to go that route:
https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/paginate_links/

Hope that helps!!